Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/85

 "What you takin' a gun for, Tom? Lookin' for Little Dog?"

"Got to be careful, Tom. That Indian'll get you yet, if you don't watch out."

"Give him time!" he said, tightening his ropes. "He's buying more arnica than ammunition right now. I saw some wolf tracks last time I was up."

But Jake, watching him as he rode out, saw the smile fade and felt vaguely anxious. He had his own troubles, however. He busied himself half-heartedly that morning, ate very little at noon, and by three o'clock knew that the ranch had definitely changed hands. He left the main house and went down by the creek for a time, that creek that he and old Lucius had always meant to dam back in the mountains and use for power as well as irrigation, and then he went to his cottage. His wife was baking bread, but she knew before he spoke.

"Well, it's gone," he told her heavily. "Lock, stock and barrel to the Potters. They'll be turning in their sheep in a week or so. Sheep!"

She went on with her bread-making, but after a time she looked up.

"We'll have to be taking Nellie out of school."

"We might keep her there this winter."

"And leave me alone in the cabin?" she said. "Without a house nearer than ten miles? I'd lose my mind."

"The cabin" was on Jake's homestead, in the land which Herbert considered God had forgot.

"I don't know what else to do, mother."

She put her bread in the oven, and after he had gone she moved slowly around the cottage which had been her home for twenty years. It was a good house, like everything old Lucius built. It was warm in winter and cool in summer. And she had lived like a lady here. The women from the church in town drove out and called on her; she had standing. When she knew they were coming she baked enormous cakes and froze ice-cream for them, and they sat around the front room with stiffly laundered napkins