Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/133

 Blakely's eyebrows and fine lines of anxiety in his face.

"You ride the range I went over yesterday, Edie. I thought I covered it well, but there's a chance I may have missed them. They might have been in the brush somewhere's out of the way of the flies. I hope so; but in my heart I know they ain't. We're short fifteen head now, and if we don't find them to-day I'll be sure that they're rustled, and that means that we've got to fight or git. We won't hardly dare to sleep now."

"No, dad." They separated to ride the range in different directions in search of the missing cattle, each with a heavy heart, but from different causes.

Blakely's face was dark with thoughts of Spiser, the unscrupulous bully who would trample him and his into the earth without a qualm for a little strip of water and a few miles of range. Stinging tears blinded Edith's eyes as instinctively she turned her horse up the trail which led out of the cool thicket to the hot mesa.

"It isn't fair!" she sobbed softly, bending over her horse's neck—"isn't fair at all!