Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/315

 too hard in his extremity, and Findlay cut the rope."

"Money. Thomson must have pushed him for a share of what he had hidden up there. He was afraid Dale would skip, leaving him holding the sack."

"That's a reasonable conclusion, considering both of them. The world's a better place for the vacancy that old scoundrel left in it. He was a worse man, any day, than Findlay."

They had buried Hal Nearing in the spot he had dedicated to that purpose, a grassy hill near the ranch-house, and heaped stones above his grave according to his wish. The two young people now sat in the sunny patio, where the little golden argosies of the air came sailing down from gaunt-growing trees. Soon this nook that gladdened in green refreshment around the fountain all the summer days would be bare, and stripped of its dignity as that stricken house was stripped.

Barrett had been so engrossed with the matters attendant upon the tragedies at the ranch that he had not had an hour to himself before this afternoon. Mrs. Nearing, fatigued by her vigil beside her dying husband, broken by the sorrow that came as the culmination of her long fear, was resting in her room. She was gentler under this burden of grief than she had been when haunted by the fear that it might come. Barrett found her again her gracious self, for peace had descended upon her, in spite of the turmoil through which it had come.

Only a few hours ago they had laid Nearing in his grave. Alma had stopped Barrett as he was saddling to ride away to Eagle Rock camp. Hospitality had a