Page:GB Lancaster--law-bringer.djvu/243

Rh "Gad, he could be better employed," he said. And then he suddenly stooped and kissed her hand.

"It's for women such as you that men have died—and will die," he said. "Because you believe in us, madame."

The she heard his spurred feet go quickly through the grass to the fence, and the sharp tone of his voice as he backed the chestnut and sprang into the buckboard. She watched for his salute as the horse jumped forward in the traces, and then she turned back into the hush of the shack and sank on her stiff old knees by the bunk.

"The dear Lord have mercy on that lad," she said. "For it seems plain to me that he stands at the crossroads of his life."

It was after this that Dick began the little gallery of sketches and paintings and vivid charcoal outlines of Grange's Andree which were to make the eyes of men burn with dry tears and their heart-beats quicken long after the beautiful warm flesh which had been a woman was gone away from human eyes for ever. Something which she did not understand held Andree from speaking to Tempest of these meetings, and something which all men understood held anyone else from telling him of the easel set up in the little back-parlour at Grange's and of the work that went on there. Andree was tired of Tempest. Nothing which he said or did could flatter her as that quick-handed, lazy-eyed man flattered when he sat among his tubes and brushes and made her laugh at her laughing self out of the canvas; but it was not in her nature to let go of any living thing which gave her such adoration as Tempest gave.

Dick had sufficient conscience to avoid Tempest and Slicker when he was able, and Slicker, who had come back to Grey Wolf to straighten such of Ducane's affairs as he could, helped him there. Slicker was lonely when Jennifer had gone East to her mother and the old home; he found no comfort in Tempest's grave silences, and he hated Dick with a virulent hate. The heat of the long summer sapped his strength more than a little, and with that began the sapping of his conscience, until it seemed more than likely that Slicker would take Ogilvie's position as remittance-man of Grey Wolf if something were not