Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/232

224 It was true that he remembered only Hugh's first blow,—that which had stretched him flat upon his back. The feel of the earth throughout one's length has a tremendous medicinal value in itself to some men, and in others it wakens a madness that is considerably worse than that which comes upon Broken Fang at the fall of darkness. And there had been at least two other blows when he was stretched out unconscious. One of them had temporarily closed his eye. The other had left a purple bruise about his lips. This was enough in itself. Men did not strike Landy Fargo down and have many months to boast of it. At least that was what he told himself time after time, in the long nights that he sat alone. The meeting with Hugh in which his horse had been returned to him had been scarcely less odious.

Fargo remembered how Hugh—with his bleeding arm—had motioned for him to go, and how at the same time his hard, bright eyes had been watching for any offensive motion on the part of Fargo. But courage to attack simply would not come to him. And in the morning light, burning with hatred and passion, he had ridden back to his home.

The affair in regard to the flocks was no longer merely a business proposition. It had its personal side now. It seemed to him that its completion was the only desire he had left. He hated the browsing sheep, he hated Crowson and