Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/96

 was unadorned, and bare as trampling hoofs could beat it. The house stood on the north bank of the river, beside what once had been the Santa Fé Trail. The notches in the river bank where the old trail crossed were still there, the road still between them, although romance was a stranger to it now, and its adventurous days were gone.

Behind the house were corrals, fenced in untidy patchwork of barbed wire, planks and poles; and a long low shed-like structure for housing cattle hands and stores. There was no other dwelling nearer than Pawnee Bend, which seemed very close by, indeed, to John Moore and his hardy family.

It was in this bunk house behind the bilious villa that Bill Dunham woke next morning at the lusty call of Shad Brassfield. It was only faintly dawn, paling stars were still to be seen, but no earlier than Dunham had been accustomed to piling out of bed ever since reaching what preachers used to be fond of calling the age of accountability. Bill was aware of the responsibility, but he never could be quite convinced of the sense. He didn't stop to question it now any more than he had done back in his grafting days, when Schoonover used to get him out before he could even smell the dawn.

There appeared to be nobody else in the bunk house, no noise of movement, no rummaging around for boots. Dunham arrayed himself in his blue serge, uncertain of what waited him that day, or what kind of clothes the job, if there was to be a job, might demand.

His belt was hanging just inside the door, but he