"You'd better,"he advised her tritely,"let sleeping dogs lie.""That's the trouble with sleeping dogs;they do lie,more often than not.These particular dogs have lied for nearly three years.I'm going to stir them up and see if I can't get a yelp of the truth out of them.""Oh,you are!"Carl laughed ironically."You'll stir up a lot of unpleasantness for yourself and the rest of us,is what you'll do.The thing's over and done with.Folks are beginning to forget it.You've got a home--"Jean laughed,and her laugh was extremely unpleasant.
"You get as good as the rest of us get,"her uncle reminded her sharply."I came near going broke myself over the affair,if you want to know;and you stand there and accuse me of cheating you out of something!I don't know what in heaven's name you expect.The Lazy A didn't make me rich,I can tell you that.It just barely helped to tide things over.You've got a home here,and you can come and go as you please.What you ain't got,"he added bitterly,"is common gratitude."He turned away from her and went into the house,and Jean sat down upon the edge of the porch and stared away at the dimming outline of the hills,and wondered what had come over her.
Three years on this ranch,seeing her uncle every day almost,living under the same roof with him,talking with him upon the everyday business of life,--and to-night,for the first time,the forbidden subject had been opened.She had said things that until lately she had not realized were in her mind.She had never liked her uncle,who was so different from her father,but she had never accused him in her mind of unfairness until she had written something of the sort in her ledger.She had never thought of quarrelling,--and yet one could scarcely call this encounter less than a quarrel.And the strange part of it was that she still believed what she had said;she still intended to do the things she declared she would do.Just how she would do them she did not know,but her purpose was hardening and coming clean-cut out of the vague background of her mind.
After awhile the dim outline of the high-shouldered hills glowed under a yellowing patch of light.Jean sat with her chin in her palms and watched the glow brighten swiftly.Then some unseen force seemed to be pushing a bright yellow disk up through a gap in the hills,and the gap was almost too narrow,so that the disk touched either side as it slid slowly upward.At last it was up,launched fairly upon its leisurely,drifting journey across to the farther hills behind her.It was not quite round.That was because one edge had scraped too hard against the side of the hill,perhaps.
But warped though it was,its light fell softly upon Jean's face,and showed it set and still and stern-eyed and somber.
She sat there awhile longer,until the slopes lay softly revealed to her,their hollows filled with inky shadows.She drew a long breath then,and looked around her at the familiar details of the Bar Nothing dwelling-place,softened a little by the moonlight,but harsh with her memories of unhappy days spent there.
She rose and went into the house and to her room,and changed the hated striped percale for her riding-clothes.
A tall,lank form detached itself from the black shade of the bunk-house as she went by,hesitated perceptibly,and then followed her down to the corral.
When she had gone in with a rope and later led out Pard,the form stood forth in the white light of the moon.
"Where are you going,Jean?"Lite asked her in a tone that was soothing in its friendliness.
"That you,Lite?I'm going--well,just going.
I've got to ride."She pulled Pard's bridle off the peg where she always hung it,and laid an arm over his neck while she held the bit against his clinched teeth.
Pard never did take kindly to the feel of the cold steel in his mouth,and she spoke to him sharply before his jaws slackened.
"Want me to go along with you?"Lite asked,and reached for his saddle and blanket.
"No,I want you to go to bed."Jean's tone was softer than it had been for that whole day."You've had all the riding you need.I've been shut up with Aunt Ella and her favorite form of torture.""Got your gun?"Lite gave the latigo a final pull which made Pard grunt.
"Of course.Why?"
"Nothing,--only it's a good night for coyotes,and you might get a shot at one.Another thing,a gun's no good on earth when you haven't got it with you.""Yes,and you've told me so about once a week ever since I was big enough to pull a trigger,"Jean retorted,with something approaching her natural tone.
"Maybe I won't come back,Lite.Maybe I'll camp over home till morning."Lite did not say anything in reply to that.He leaned his long person against a corral post and watched her out of sight on the trail up the hill.Then he caught his own horse,saddled it leisurely,and rode away.
Jean rode slowly,leaving the trail and striking out across the open country straight for the Lazy A.She had no direct purpose in riding this way;she had not intended to ride to the Lazy A until she named the place to Lite as her destination,but since she had told him so,she knew that was where she was going.The picture-people would not be there at night,and she felt the need of coming as close as possible to her father;at the Lazy A,where his thoughts would cling,she felt near to him,--much nearer than when she was at the Bar Nothing.And that the gruesome memory of what had happened there did not make the place seem utterly horrible merely proves how unshakable was her faith in him.
A coyote trotted up out of a hollow facing her,stiffened with astonishment,dropped nose and tail,and slid away in the shadow of the hill.A couple of minutes later Jean saw him sitting alert upon his haunches on a moon-bathed slope,watching to see what she would do.She did nothing;and the coyote pointed his nose to the moon,yap-yap-yapped a quavering defiance,and slunk out of sight over the hill crest.