Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/90

 In a frenzy of anger he reached down under his stirrup and jerked out his rifle, and hardly sighting the gun, fired it. It was an impulsive action, and ineffectual as well. The figure stood for a moment surveying him, then it made a gesture of derision and moved out of sight.

Two hours later he was ambushed.

He had been keeping to the center of the valley, but now it narrowed, and down timber from a forest fire made the going slow and extremely painful. And from somewhere on the rocky hillside above a rifle shot suddenly rang out. There was a second shot before he could lift his rifle, but both missed. He fired back as soon as he could, having taken what shelter he could find, but the attack was not repeated, and since to ride up the slope alone was suicidal, when nothing more happened he went on.

On Saturday he found the result of the first day's round-up bunched, as Jake had told him, on the hill above Timber Creek. He was dirty and unshaven, and his eyes were sunken with fatigue. He handed his cattle over to the men riding herd, rode to the camp and unsaddled the Miller, and then, whistling and slightly swaggering, wandered into the cook tent, where Slim was paring potatoes.

"Open a can of beans for me, Slim, will you?" he said. "Seems like I haven't had a meal for a week."

"You look it. What in hell made you tackle that job single-handed?"

"Maybe I wanted to show I could do it," he drawled lazily.

When Slim had filled a plate with hot beans and a tin cup with coffee, he found him sound asleep under a tree.

It was not until the round-up was on its fourth day that there came the repercussion from that unlucky shot of Tom's.

The men were working hard.

At three-thirty in the morning they rolled out and ate breakfast morosely, by the light of a lantern hung over the stove in the mess tent; at four or a little after they were in the saddle.

All morning until dinner at 10:30, and all the afternoon, they rode, throwing off the cattle, bunching them, and by