Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/43

Rh they were out in the corral looking over the horses with the aid of a lantern.

There was nothing dangerous in that adventure, but when Andy turned his back on the house and started again up the valley his nerves were singing. He rehearsed the cock-and-bull story he had stammered out to Sullivan. What if the shrewd old fellow had read everything between the lines?

The muscles of Andy's back quivered in hysterical expectation of the bullet that might strike among them. And then the kind darkness settled around him.

When he was calmer he would rebuild the scene with Sullivan with more truth. He realized that he had played his part well—astonishingly well. His voice had not quivered. His eye had met that of the old rancher every moment. His hand had been as steady as iron.

Something that Uncle Jasper had said recurred to him, something about iron dust. He felt now that there was indeed a strong, hard metal in him; fear had put it there —or was it fear itself? Was it not fear that had brought the gun into his hand so easily when the crowd rushed him from the door of the saloon? Was it not fear that had made his nerves so rocklike as he faced that crowd and made his get-away?

He was on one side now, and the world was on the other. He turned in the saddle arid probed the thick blackness with his eyes; then he sent the pinto on at an easy, ground-devouring lope. Sometimes, as the ravine narrowed, the close walls made the creaking of the saddle leather loud in his ears, and the puffing of pinto, who hated work; sometimes the hoofs scuffed noisily through gravel; but usually the soft sand muffled the noise of hoofs, and there was a silence as dense as the night around Andy Lanning.