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Updated: May 21, 2025
Outside, Catherson paced back and forth, his lips forming soundless words, his big hands working as though the fingers were at the throat of the thief that had stolen into his home. His mind was going over certain words that Hagar had answered to his questions, just before Ruth's coming. He dwelt upon every slight circumstance that had occurred during the past few months.
You see, there was a time when I busted right in the house without waitin' for an invitation tickled to get a chance to dawdle a kid on my knee. But I reckon them dawdle-days is over. I wouldn't think of tryin' to dawdle a woman on my knee. But if you think that you're still Hagar Catherson, an' you won't be dead-set on me dawdlin' you Why, shucks, I reckon I'm talkin' like a fool!"
"You must have seen them," she added, with a hope that some one at the ranchhouse might have seen him. She would have felt more secure if she had known that someone had seen him. "Nothin' doin'," he said, a queer leap in his voice. "I come straight from the shack, by the Lazette trail. How does it come that you're here, alone? What did Catherson an' Hagar go to the Flyin' W for?
Then he took a quick step forward and seized her hands, holding her at arm's length, his eyes leaping in admiration. "Why, if it ain't Hagar Catherson!" he said, wonder in his voice. "Have you just got out of a fairy book?" Old friendship was speaking here; Ruth could not fail to understand that. But he had not yet finished. "Why, I reckon " he began.
For at that distance he made a fair target, and Catherson made no movement toward his gun. The nester was still silent; he had spoken no word. He spoke none now, as he hung relentlessly to his prey, seeming, to Masten's distorted mind and vision, a hideous, unnatural and ghastly figure of death. Catherson had drawn nearer. He was not more than thirty feet away when Masten's pony went down again.
I reckon Randerson had pretty nigh killed him. What for?" he asked as Ruth turned wide, questioning eyes on him. "Well, I don't rightly know. But I've got suspicions. I've seen Masten goin' day after day through that break in the canyon over there. A hundred times, I cal'late. An' I've seen him here, when you wasn't lookin', kissin' that Catherson girl.
As Randerson rode Patches through the break in the canyon wall in the afternoon of a day about a week after his talk with Uncle Jepson in the bunkhouse, he was thinking of the visit he intended to make. He had delayed it long. He had not seen Abe Catherson since taking his new job. "I reckon he'll think I'm right unneighborly," he said to himself as he rode.
Aunt Martha looked, long and intently. And when she finally turned to Uncle Jepson, her face was radiant, and she opened her arms to him. "Oh, Jep!" she exclaimed lowly, "ain't that wonderful!" "I cal'late I've been expectin' it," he observed. The meeting between Catherson and Randerson had taken the edge off Catherson's frenzy, but it had not shaken his determination.
If the blow had been struck Nig would have leaped, then, no matter what the consequences. Catherson had not struck. But one great, dominating passion was in his mind at this moment the yearning to slay! The dog had seen him, twice during the last half hour, draw out his heavy six-shooter and examine it, and each time the dog had growled his disapproval of the action.
She found opportunities to ride and sew and talk the latter mostly with Aunt Martha and Uncle Jepson. And she kept making her visits to Hagar Catherson. Of late Ruth had noticed a change in the girl's manner. She seemed to have lost the vivacity that had swept upon her with the coming of her new clothes; she had grown quiet and thoughtful, and had moods of intense abstraction.
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