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Lucy watched him with a full heart, and as she thought of his overcoming the evil in him when her father had yielded to it, she suffered poignant shame. This Creech was not a bad man. He was going to let her go, and he was going to return Bostil's horses when they came. Lucy resolved with a passionate determination that her father must make ample restitution for the loss Creech had endured.
Macomber and Blinn, with a rider and a Navajo, were up there as the official starters of the day. Bostil's eyes glistened. He put a friendly hand on Cordts's shoulder, an action which showed the stress of the moment. Most of the men crowded around Bostil. Sears and Hutchinson hung close to Cordts. And Holley, keeping near his employer, had keen eyes for other things than horses.
Creech was no longer a friend of Bostil's, but Bostil had always been fair-minded, and now he did not allow his animosities to influence him. Holley, the veteran rider, made the sixth member of the club. Bostil had a cedar log blazing cheerily in the wide fireplace, for these early spring nights in the desert were cold. Brackton was the last guest to arrive.
Thus Slone had spent waking hours by day and night, mad with love and remorse, tormented one hour by imagined grounds for hope and resigned to despair the next. Upon the sixth morning of his stay at Bostil's Slone rose with something of his former will reasserting itself. He could not remain in Bostil's home any longer unless he accepted Bostil's offer, and this was not to be thought of.
Then she was tearing through the sage, out past the whistling Wildfire, with the wind sweet in her face. She did not look back. All through May there was an idea, dark and sinister, growing in Bostil's mind. Fiercely at first he had rejected it as utterly unworthy of the man he was. But it returned. It would not be denied. It was fostered by singular and unforeseen circumstances.
He was as pleased as a boy listening to a good story. He praised Lucy again and again. He crowed over Bostil's discomfiture. And when Lucy told him that Slone had dared her father to race, had offered to bet Wildfire and his own life against her hand, then Creech was beside himself. "This hyar Slone he CALLED Bostil's hand!" "He's a wild-horse hunter. And HE can trail us!" "Trail us! Slone?
Bostil's mind had begun to relax from the single idea. Was he alone? Except for the low murmur of the river there was dead silence a silence like no other a silence which seemed held under imprisoning walls. Yet Bostil peered long into the shadows. Then he looked up.
"Nothin' except But that doesn't matter," replied Slone, cut to the quick by Bostil's scorn. "I'm glad you know, an' so much for that." Bostil turned to look at Wildfire once more, and he looked long. When he faced around again he was another man. Slone felt the powerful driving passion of this old horse-trader.
Slone turned instantly, surprised at the friendly tone, doubting his own ears, and wanting to verify them. He was the more surprised to see Holley unmistakably amiable. "Hello, Holley! How are you?" he replied. "Have a seat." "Wal, I'm right spry fer an old bird. But I can't climb wuth a d n .... Say, this here beats Bostil's view."
"Lucy, to-morrow'll be the biggest day Bostil's Ford ever seen," he said. "It sure will be, Dad. The biggest SURPRISING day the Ford ever had," replied Lucy. "Surprisin'?" "Yes, Dad." "Who's goin' to get surprised?" "Everybody." Bostil said to himself that he had been used to Lucy's banter, but during his moody spell of days past he had forgotten how to take her or else she was different.
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