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We took rank again and swept steadily on through the hot still hours into the evening shadows, until the sinking sun set a Gloria to the psalm of another working day. Only a third of the field lay mown, for we were not skilled labourers to cut our acre a day; I saw it again that night under the moonlight and the starlight, wrapped in a shroud of summer's mist.
We were bidden take off our boots and hang them by their laces round our necks as country boys do when they want to go barefoot. Then we tiptoed to the door, which was ajar. Outside was a passage with a flight of steps at one end which led to the open air. On these steps lay a faint shine of starlight, and by its help I saw a man huddled up at the foot of them.
As for us, we had made up our minds to enjoy ourselves while we could, and we had come to his way of thinking, that most likely nothing was known of our being in the cattle affair that Starlight and the boy had been arrested for. We knew nothing would drag it out of Starlight about his pals in this or any other job.
He rode on until he came within sight of the town a dim huddle of low buildings in the starlight. He swung off the trail, hobbled his horse, fastened his rope to the hobbles, and tied that in turn to a long, heavy slab of rock, and turned in. He would not risk losing his horse in this desert land.
He reminds me of that fearful personage in the nursery rhyme: Who goes round the house at night? None but bloody Tom! Who steals all the sheep at night? None but one by one! In short, Starlight Tom is the scapegoat of the neighbourhood, but so cunning and adroit, that there is no detecting him.
And I thought of the wild rose that starlight night, and how fitly was it her symbol and her flower. Lana looked at us both, unsmiling; then drew her hands from mine and crook'd her arms behind her neck, cradling her head on them, looking at us both all the while. Presently her lids drooped on her white cheeks.
The moon was straight above the old bull when Gray Wolf scented the first real danger. Instantly she gave the warning to Kazan and faced the bloody trail, her lithe body quivering, her fangs gleaming in the starlight, a snarling whine in her throat.
"Sun and sea to-morry they'll be back on Au Fer like dried bones o' dead men in the sand! Bear east'ard off of 'em!" The oarsman struggled in the deeper pass water. The skiff bow suddenly plunged into a wall of green-and-purple bloom. The points brushed Tedge's cheek. He cursed and smote them, tore them from the low bow and flung them. But the engineman stood up and peered into the starlight.
There was a little pang at the thought of the privations in possible store for the family through him, but he had resolved to make the best of circumstances and be brave as possible. Once more he looked over the scene, but there were only dim black shadows in the starlight, and he went down toward the twinkling lights of the city below.
A sergeant of police was shot in our last scrimmage, and they must fit some one over that. It's only natural. He was rash, or Starlight would never have dropped him that day. Not if he'd been sober either. We'd been drinking all night at that Willow Tree shanty. Bad grog, too! When a man's half drunk he's fit for any devilment that comes before him. Drink!
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