United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"That's what he said, Judkie; that's what he said." "'An the more prisoners ye have, the less youse'll git to eat," chanted Judkins, making a triumphal flourish with his hand. Chrisfield groped for the cognac bottle; it was empty; he waved it in the air a minute and then threw it into the tree opposite him. A shower of little apples fell about Judkins's head. He got unsteadily to his feet.
She became aware of Judkins's hand touching hers; she heard him speak a husky good-by; then into the place of Bells shot the dead-black, keen, racy nose of Night, and she knew Lassiter rode beside her. "Don't look back!" he said, and his voice, too, was not clear. Facing straight ahead, seeing only the waving, shadowy sage, Jane held out her gauntleted hand, to feel it enclosed in strong clasp.
"I reckon Jane would be easier. First names are always handy for me." "Well, use mine, then. Lassiter, I'm glad to see you. I'm in trouble." Then she told him of Judkins's return, of the driving of the red herd, of Venters's departure on Wrangle, and the calling-in of her riders. "'Pears to me you're some smilin' an' pretty for a woman with so much trouble," he remarked. "Lassiter!
I couldn't help thinkin' how easy even a boy could hev dropped the great gun-man then!... Wal, the rustler stood at the bar fer a long time, en' he was seein' things far off, too; then he come to an' roared fer whisky, an' gulped a drink thet was big enough to drown me." "Is Oldring here now?" whispered Venters. He could not speak above a whisper. Judkins's story had been meaningless to him.
Meantime, at the ranch, when Judkins's news had sent Venters on the trail of the rustlers, Jane Withersteen led the injured man to her house and with skilled fingers dressed the gunshot wound in his arm. "Judkins, what do you think happened to my riders?" "I I d rather not say," he replied. "Tell me. Whatever you'll tell me I'll keep to myself.
Chrisfield doubled his fists and gave him a smashing blow in the jaw that Judkins warded of just in time. Judkins's face flamed red. He swung with a long bent arm. "What the hell d'you think this is?" shouted somebody. "What's he want to hit me for?" spluttered Judkins, breathless. Men had edged in between them. "Lemme git at him." "Shut up, you fool," said Andy, drawing Chrisfield away.
But in the middle of a word Prudy made a mistake and dropped off to sleep. "No, my dears," said grandma. "I couldn't consent to let you go strawberrying 'up by the Pines' as you call it. It is Mr. Judkins's mowing-field." "But, grandma," said Grace, "Johnny Gordon went there yesterday, and there wasn't any fuss about it." "Then you may be sure Mr. Judkins did not know it," said grandma.
The men exchanged glances, and the meaning of Lassiter's keen inquiry and Judkins's bold reply, both unspoken, was not lost upon Jane. "Where's your hoss?" asked Lassiter, aloud. "Left him down the slope," answered Judkins. "I footed it in a ways, an' slept last night in the sage. I went to the place you told me you 'moss always slept, but didn't strike you."
She realized, without wonder or amaze, how Judkins's one word, affirming the death of Dyer that the catastrophe had fallen had completed the change whereby she had been molded or beaten or broken into another woman. She felt calm, slightly cold, strong as she had not been strong since the first shadow fell upon her.
On the morning of the second day after Judkins's recital, during which time Jane remained indoors a prey to regret and sorrow for the boy riders, and a new and now strangely insistent fear for her own person, she again heard what she had missed more than she dared honestly confess the soft, jingling step of Lassiter.
Word Of The Day