Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/166



HE thought of Jud now took him up the back trail of Andrew Lanning. He leaned far over with the lantern, studying with intense interest every place where the wounds of the injured man might have left telltale stains on the rocks or the grass. When he had apparently satisfied himself of this, he turned and ran at full speed back to the house and went up the ladder to Andrew. There he took the boots—they were terribly stained, he saw—and drew them on.

The loose boots and the unaccustomed weights tangled his feet sadly, as he went on down the ladder, but he said not a word to his grandfather, who was far too dignified to make a comment on the borrowed footgear. Again outside with his lantern, the boy took out his pocketknife and felt the small blade. It was of a razor keenness. Then he went through the yard behind the house to the big henhouse, where the chickens sat perched in dense rows. He raised his lantern; at once scores of tiny, bright eyes flashed back at him. It was an uncanny thing to see.

But Jud, with a twisted face of determination, kept on with his survey until he saw the red comb and the arched tail plumes of a large Plymouth Rock rooster. It was a familiar sight to Jud. Of all the chickens on the place this was his peculiar property. He had helped the weakling out of the shell. He had fed him through all the fluffy and gaunt stages of a rooster's growth.