Page:Sheep Limit (1928).pdf/306

 Then he went outside to watch around for the next act in that day's eventful doings.

It was at least two hours after Peck's going, the sun standing at mid afternoon, when he saw Mrs. Peck approaching from the direction of the sheep, which Peck had ranged out that morning some distance farther up the creek than ever before. She stopped at the top of every slight rise as she came along, to search the valley in the vicinity of the sheep, which were spread wide. She was looking for Peck, Rawlins knew. Very likely she had appointed to meet him there to get the news of his success, being too crafty to compromise herself by appearing at the house before the thing was settled.

Watching her wary, doubtful progress toward the house, Rawlins concluded to conceal himself in the buffalo wallow and see how she would take it when she arrived. He left the door standing open, the butcher knife on the floor where he had dropped it, the pan of onions beside the table as Peck had released it from the embrace of his romantic legs. But Peck's pistol he belted around himself, and his own rifle he took down from the wall and hid.

Mrs. Peck rode up from the creek in the same perplexed, hesitant, cautious way. Every little while she stopped, looking around anxiously. When she reached the house she hesitated a distance off, as if debating whether to dismount or ride to the door. Finally she rode on, slowly, drew up in front of the door some twenty or thirty feet away from it, leaned and looked into the house. Then she dismounted, leaving her horse standing, and went in.