Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/259

 Yes, and the little human puppets under the finger of this mocking genius were chips wildly eddying in the whirlpool of her caprice. A Von Tromp, sore in body, bitter in spirit, sat like a coiled rattler in a swaying stage carrying him south to the railroad and that mysterious ring of the big people who employed him; he was hurrying to report nothing less than a scourge of fire competent to prevent the extinction of the cattle clan. A Hilma Ring, become horse thief, was lost in the Big Country, and two men sought her,—one a lover. A wilderness preacher and prophet called upon his Maker to witness that he, and he alone, had wrought the vengeance of the Most High.

But the tale was not told; the comedy had yet another act. Having achieved confusion in the Big Country, the capricious spirit went elsewhere for her instruments of dénouement.

Far, far to the south where the deserts lap like seas about raw towns and all the outlaw trails converge before leaping the Line to Mexico, certain agents whose names need not appear in this chronicle—go to the Big Country to-day and these names will be told you in whispers—certain agents, I say, were busy at their peculiar devices. In the back rooms of