Page:The Black Cat v01no02 (1895-11).pdf/7

Rh that sent her hands to the check at Jane's head just at the moment when Billy's must meet them.

And Billy held them close, while Jane dropped her nose and sniffed at some barley grains, indifferent to the fact that her toilet was forgotten.

"Your father'd give me the word to fight the man that could take ye from me now ," Billy said.

And Rudy was whiter than the hair on Jane where it happened to be clean.

"It's my father I shall never leave," she answered him.

"It's the father, His book tells ye, shall be left for the husband."

Billy dropped her hands to come around and take her in his arms.

"Say no more, girl, but the word you love me."

And Rudy had said it. And Rudy had sobbed over it, and laughed over it, and sung over it before the message was delivered and Jane in her stall again.

This was a perplexity Rudy's father laid in heaven's care. "There must be something to live on," he had used as a protest. And what had always made Billy's living but his revolver,—his Betty? The mining was snail's pace at best, and with Rudy on his heart there was mad need of haste. With everything at his hand and his Colt ready, there were only the plans, which he straightway laid. Money for the northern mines passed under his nose once every month. Mounted messengers were the things he and Betty were used to, and the advantage of his isolated claim gave him the chance for the doing in the hours of an unoccupied afternoon.

The flies lifted off on lazy wings as the figure under the chaparral at the base of the scrub-oak heaved onto an elbow and measured the shadow. With the sharp focus of quick sight, he turned to the road again. Down in the far distance a cloud of dust hung in the air. The man went onto his stomach again. The flies settled, the ants took up their burden, and the summer sun burned over all.

On came the rolling dust, the four horses, the driver, the messenger, and the passengers. They must have passed by Rudy's little house; perhaps Rudy had been looking out at them. Well,