Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/146

142 The announcement brought with it a long and thoughtful pause.

"I wisht I could send you on your way with somethin' worth while," said Hank Rainer at length. "But I ain't rich. I've lived plain and worked hard, but I ain't rich. I've lived and worked hard, but I've got not so much as a wife nor a child. So what I can give you, Andy, won't be much."

Andrew protested that the hospitality had been more than a generous gift, but Hank Rainer, looking straight out the door, continued: "Well, I'm goin' down the road to get you my little gift, Andy. Be back in an hour maybe."

"I'd rather have you here to keep me from being lonely," said Andrew. "I've money enough to buy what I want, but money will never buy me the talk of an honest man, Hank."

The other started. "Honest enough, maybe," he said bitterly. "But honesty don't get you bread or bacon, not in this world!"

And presently he stamped into the shed, saddled his pony, and after a moment was scattering the pebbles on the way down the ravine. The dark and silence gathered over Andrew Lanning. He had little warmth of feeling for Hank Rainer, to be sure, but in the hush of the cabin he looked forward to many a long evening and many a long day in a silence like this, with no man near him. For the man who rides outside the law rides alone, and the thought of that loneliness made the heart of Andrew ache.

He could have embraced the big man, therefore, when Hank finally came back, and Andrew could hear the pony panting in the shed, a sure sign that it had been ridden hard.