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Maggard nodded, wondering what moral was to be drawn from tan-bark ring and canvas top, and his interviewer continued: "Then like es not ye've seed one of them fellers in tights an' tin spangles balancin' a ladder on his chest with a see-saw atop hit an' a human bein' settin' on each eend of thet see-saw.
Thornton, for now it was useless to think of himself longer as Cal Maggard, stood straight-shouldered until the turn of the road took them beyond sight, then his head came down and his eyes clouded into a deep misery. That night the moon rode in a sky where the only clouds were wisps of opal-fleece and the ranges were flat-toned and colossal ramparts of cobalt.
Rowlett had hoped for such an invitation. He knew that it was more than an "unhandy" shot. It was indeed a spectacularly difficult one but he knew also that he could do it twice out of three times, and he was not averse to demonstrating his master-skill. The rifle barked and the squirrel dropped, shot through the head, but Maggard said nothing and Rowlett only spat and set the gun down.
When he attempted to rise, after a night of returned fever, his muscles refused to obey the mandates of his will, and Uncle Jase Burrell, who had arrived early to make out the license, issued his edict that Cal Maggard must be married in bed. But at that his patient broke into defiant and open rebellion.
Between long periods of fevered coma Cal Maggard opened his eyes weakly and had strength only to smile up at the face above him with its nimbus of bronze set about the heaviness of dark hair or to spend his scarcely audible words with miserly economy. Yet as he drifted in the shadowy reaches that lie between life and death it is doubtful whether he suffered.
A hateful scowl was gathering in his eyes as he hesitated and Maggard went on suavely: "Anybody else could do hit fer me but I've got ther feelin' thet I wants ye, Bas." "All right," came the low answer. "I'll aim ter convenience ye, Cal." He turned hastily and left the room, and bending over the bed Uncle Jase produced the marriage license.
"I reckon thet's all, men," he said, briefly, and Cal Maggard recognized that the silence with which they turned away from him was more ominous than if they had berated him.
But Bas Rowlett was too adroit to betray by more than a single unguarded flash his jealous reaction to mention of the girl and he responded quietly and unemotionally enough. "She hain't no man's wife ... yit. Old Caleb's her grandpap." "I've done seed some powerful comely gals in my day an' time," mused Maggard, abstractedly, "but I hain't nuver seed ther like of her afore."
Old Man Harper came over to the bed and Rowlett released his hold and moved away. "I've done been studyin' whether Dorothy's goin' ter make hit acrost ter Jase Burrell's or not," said Caleb, quaveringly. "I fears me ther storm hes done washed out the ford." Then he crossed to the hearth and sat down in a chair to light his pipe. Cal Maggard lay unmoving as the old man's chair creaked.
Still she stood with the wide-eyed raptness of a sleepwalker, and when Cal Maggard moved slowly forward, she, who had been so shy an hour ago, made no retreat. It was all as though each of them reacted to the command of some controlling volition beyond themselves. The man's arms closed about her slender body and pressed it close to his breast.
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