Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/82



AR away in the western sky Andy Lanning saw a black dot that moved in wide circles and came up across the heavens slowly, and he knew it was a buzzard that scented carrion and was coming up the wind toward that scent. He had seen them many a time before on their gruesome trails, and the picture which he carried was not a pleasant one.

But now the picture that drifted through his mind was still more horrible. It was a human body lying face downward in the sand with the wind ruffling in the hair and the hat rolled a few paces off and the gun close to the outstretched hand. That was the way they would leave him when they found him. And he knew from Uncle Jasper that no matter how far the trail led, or how many years it was ridden, the end of the outlaw was always the same—death and the body left to the buzzards. Or else, in some barroom, a footfall from behind and a bullet through the back.

The flesh of Andy crawled.

Hunger was a sharp pain in his vitals. He smoked a cigarette and forgot it. His eyes dimmed from long wakefulness and from squinting across the sand, but one rub of his hand restored the freshness of his sight. It was not possible for him to relax in vigilance for a moment, lest danger come upon him when he least expected ft. Perhaps, in some open space like this. He could feel the muscles of his face drawing with the test, but