Pillar Mountain E-Book

Max Brand

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Loafer was a big dog who looked like a buffalo wolf; he was gray against one background and pale yellow against another; like a buffalo wolf, he had a great leonine body covered with a loose hide which humped in a wave above his shoulders at every lurch of his gallop. Strangers always said „Wolf! ” when they saw him, and no one said „Good dog! ” except his master.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER XXXVII

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CHAPTER XXXIX

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XLI

CHAPTER XLII

CHAPTER XLIII

CHAPTER I

LOAFER was a big dog who looked like a buffalo wolf; he was gray against one background and pale yellow against another; like a buffalo wolf, he had a great leonine body covered with a loose hide which humped in a wave above his shoulders at every lurch of his gallop. Strangers always said “Wolf!” when they saw him (there were four bullet scars upon him), and no one said “Good dog!” except his master. However, he was too busy most of the time to be bothered by human opinions which, also, seldom came to his ears. On this morning he was hunting on the broad breast of Pillar Mountain not for food but for revenge; his enemy was a lop-eared rabbit.

There never was a time when wolf or wolfish dog could match speed with a Western jack rabbit; but in brains the difference lay on the other side and, since puppyhood, Loafer had been certain that no rabbit could live a week in his domain save by permission. The little darting idiots always could be scared into the waiting teeth. At least, that was his opinion until he encountered Lop-ear; and after that the life of Loafer was poisoned.

Lop-ear was a perfect Achilles among jack rabbits, and he was an Odysseus, also; nothing stirred on the mountains or on the broad desert that he could not outrun, and there was very little that he could not outthink. Above all, he was familiar with Pillar Mountain, and he grew up to a splendid maturity under the nose of Loafer. They sharpened their wits on one another, like scimitar on scimitar, and each grew great because the other was a proper metal. Yet, victor of a thousand contests with the big dog, swelled with the pride of his own fame, Lop-ear on this morning made a serious mistake. He had filled his belly with newly sprouted twigs, flavored with keen spice, rich with juice, tender as watercress; and now he sat in the sun with his head drawn back upon his shoulders, his eyes a mere glimmering black thread of watchfulness, and his ears fallen flat on his back.

They should have been erect like two towers of watchfulness, drinking in all sound, tenfold more watchful because the south wind was cutting straight up the side of the mountain and blowing away the scent of all who hunted down the slope. Also, the eyes of Lop-ear should have been wide open, so that he could have seen the big stalker, approaching like a great yellow ball of thistledown, soundless, drifting with speed and infinite cunning straight into the eye of the wind.

To Lop-ear, it was like rousing from a nightmare and finding that it is not a dream! When the gray-yellow bolt sprang, Lop-ear hugged the ground one dreadful instant; then with a scream he leaped straight under the head of Loafer. A side rip of those flashing teeth sliced the hip of the rabbit, but he went down the first little cañon so fast that the rocks blurred as they flew past. For once in his life he had forgotten that he was Lop-ear, and a king, and he consented to take refuge in the common strength of his race–sheer, blinding speed. So he ran like mad, putting in not one spy-hop in twenty, and quite forgot that the cañon traveled in a precise little semicircle.

Loafer did not forget; he had never forgotten, since the day a mountain lion taught him that it is dangerous to sleep even in the broad light of noon on the threshold of the master’s house. Now he cantered across the arc of the semicircle and Lop-ear, after a tremendous burst of sprinting, found himself running down the very jaws of his foe. He dodged with a speed that would have made the most famous halfback faint with envy, but the white steel of Loafer’s teeth clipped the air just in front of his nose, and therefore he doubled and headed up a difficult slope of broken rock.

That winded him more than ever, and as Lop-ear flung himself down the mountainside, he knew that he was not half a hop, half a thought beyond the reach of death. He cleared the brook from bank to bank at a single glorious bound, but as he landed the teeth clicked at his tail again, and the mind of Lop-ear went black and dizzy, like blown mist at night. The yawning door of the hut seemed to him, at first, some sort of a haven, but it was reeking with the terrible scent of man, so Lop-ear swerved to the side and almost perished again because he did so. Then, knowing that his wind was gone–for he had burned it up like a fool, rather than a wise king–he did the one thing that remained to him: he dived into a hole that showed under the edge of a jagged rock.

There, in the black depths, he cuddled small and smaller into the moist darkness and prayed to the God who cares for all good rabbits.

Loafer lay down and hung a forepaw as big as the hand of a man into the mouth of the hole. He laughed as he lay, and the wrinkles of laughter made his big hazel eyes small and wicked with delight. For he knew all about that hole. He had known about it ever since he was a little puppy, when he himself had been small enough to escape from the wrathful hand of the master and dodge into this haven. It ran straight down, for a bit, then straightened ahead; and there were two things worth knowing–one was that it filled with water only after the very heaviest rains–the other was that the hole could not be driven deeper, because it ended against solid stone.

So Loafer laughed, and withdrawing his paw, he put his muzzle at the entrance and inhaled the sweet fragrance of steaming rabbit–rabbit steamed in fear, and spiced with the delicately familiar and long-hated scent of Lop-ear himself.

Even children know that good things should be enjoyed slowly, and Loafer was no child. He began first by enlarging the mouth of the hole. Then he inserted his arm to the shoulder, and heard a squeak of terror; the sound went electrically through the body of Loafer; it went sweetly through his soul.

Listening again, he heard frantic scratching. But he knew all about that hole and the consistency of its walls; therefore he laughed again, and when Lop-ear heard the almost soundless laughter, the scratching stopped. Dreadful, waiting silence began.

After this, with leisure and with system, Loafer enlarged the hole. The whole upper level was porous sand and gravel which he could rip away with his strong claws, and having done that, how simple it would be to reach in and paw out the rabbit! Now and again he paused to listen, but the silence of despair continued in that death-hole; only from the house he heard the young voice of the master singing. How far, how faint, how utterly dim and unreal are the joys of mankind, thought Loafer, and bent afresh to his task.

With both forepaws he labored and the hole ripped wide; then he lay down and his whole shoulder fitted into the aperture, his elbow came to the bottom of the downward shaft, and his right paw touched Lop-ear.

That paw began to tremble with the thundering heartbeats of the victim. He reached farther. He felt the shrinking shoulder and the soft throat of the king of rabbits, but just as he was about to scoop Lop-ear out of the hole he heard a grinding sound, the big rock settled, and drove a sharp stone into his forearm.

He lurched back, but the hole had collapsed, and his arm was held as by a glove. The edged stone worked into his flesh like a tooth; his whole shoulder was being crushed.

Then Loafer forgot the rabbit, and his mind flashed back to the master as an electric torch picks something from the night. He barked; he whined with pain and fear; and the master stood suddenly above him, leaning with kind, thoughtful face.

“I’ll get something for a lever,” said the master.

Loafer groaned.

“By heaven,” said the master, “it’s breaking his leg!”

And he bestrode the jagged rock.

It was as black as iron and almost as heavy. Deeply rooted, massive, it defied his strength. Mightily he heaved, and Loafer saw the feet of the man thrust ankle deep in the yielding gravel. He heard the creak of grinding joints, the snapping of tendons drawn with a merciless power, and then the groan of the master in the full agony of his effort.

The burden which crushed the leg of the dog was lightened. He snatched out his leg. But still the man persisted in his labor as though he did not know the work was done; Loafer limped around and stood before him, looking up into his face, which was mixed red and purple, and running with perspiration. His whole body shook; his breathing was a succession of groans; but the stone began to rise.

That Loafer himself had been saved was one thing; but vaguely the dog understood that something of infinitely more importance now was going on. Lop-ear ventured from the hole and fled away unheeded; only from the corner of his eye the dog watched his old enemy flee; but in this mighty work of the raising of the stone, whatever its meaning, he wished to assist. The roots of the rock worked loose with a sucking sound; the black, wet belly of the stone came slowly up to view; it was poised; it swung to the side and fell, crushing a dozen smaller stones to bits in its fall.

Then the master sank down, also. He lay at full length, moaning, his eyes closed, his body shaken with spasms, and Loafer was filled with terror and amazement. This man was the center of the universe. At his bidding, beyond doubt, the wind blew and the sun rose. He killed afar and gave food to his humble companion. In the blast of summer heat, his hut was cool, and in the winter his red magic gave the house warmth to which Loafer was welcomed. Yet now he lay sick and stricken. When Loafer licked his face he neither spoke nor turned away. When Loafer licked his trembling hands, they made no response, and for the first time the caress of the dog was unreturned.

He crowded close to the youth as though winter cold made him seek for warmth, and lifting his great wrinkled head, Loafer called aloud to the old gods of his people.

There was an immediate response; an arm passed around his neck, and while he whined with joy, the master dragged himself to his knees, to his feet. He stood wavering, and yet he began to laugh.

“I’ve done it!” he said over and over again; “I’ve done it.”

Then he went into the hut and slumped heavily on to a bunk. Loafer sat beside him, on guard. His mane bristled when he considered what dreadful deeds he would perform for the sake of his master.

CHAPTER II

OLD Oliver Aytoun came home to the shack after dark and found the hut filled with the steam and fragrance of frying venison. Through the smoke of cookery the boy smiled at him, and he smiled in return.

“Have you had a good day, Philip?”

“A very good day, Uncle Oliver.”

They said no more. Oliver Aytoun washed his hands and face in a basin of warm water which Philip prepared for him; by the time he had dried himself supper was laid out on the table. It was a good meal of the venison, in place of honor, excellent corn bread, boiled greens, coffee, and plum jam, made from small blue plums which grew wild on the mountain, unmatchable for perfume and flavor.

They talked very little. Oliver Aytoun had been delayed because he had walked over a tentative new line for their traps and it had taken him almost to Ransome Peak. Then Philip told how he had spent the morning hauling down saplings by hand from beyond the clearing and piling them behind the house, to make ready for the building of the lean-to.

“This afternoon?”

“I did only one thing,” said Philip. “It’s a surprise for you.”

They smiled at one another again; between them was a beautiful and perfect understanding.

Yet they appeared totally dissimilar, for Oliver Aytoun was a lean man of more than sixty; mountain labor and mountain weather made him appear ten years older in the face and ten years younger in the body. Philip was a mere youth of twenty or so with a great leonine head and a massive throat and shoulders to support it, so that looked at from behind he seemed a formidable man, but viewed in full face his eyes were so large and so blue, his mouth so femininely tender and smiling that he looked less man than child, and rather a simple child, at that.

After the meal, Aytoun sat in the open doorway and watched the shaggy mountain rising up against the stars; Philip washed the tin dishes and the pans, rinsed the dishrag, and hung it on a peg behind the stove to dry. In all that time he only said: “Can you see the lights, Uncle Oliver?”

“I can see them,” said Aytoun.

When the work was ended by the sweeping of the floor, Philip sat on the threshold beside the older man and for a long time the silence went on between them, for they were watching the lights. If there was the least water vapor in the air, or a trace of dust, the great valley to the southwest was a dark, deep ocean, but on dry, clear nights such as this, in the great bottom of the bowl they could see the lights of a town glimmering and twinkling busily–like stars, but more yellow, and more alive. To Philip that meant the world of man.

Even on the brightest, clearest day he could not see a trace of the town, though from year to year he had watched the area of the ploughed lands growing in a darker stain each autumn, a larger patch of green each spring. Once the fall ploughing had made only a handful of shadow near the silver streak of the river, but now it extended from foothills to foothills. However, that was a mere spot upon the map, a faint indication, whereas this starry twinkling in the hollow hand of the night stirred the boy with a sense of the flaming souls of men.

He knew nothing but the hut and the mountains. Their only contacts with the world were made by the old man, who twice a year piled their crop of pelts on the backs of the two mules they kept and went down to some crossroads village of which he never had told Philip so much as the name.

Of course he asked many questions, and Oliver Aytoun liked nothing so well as to talk about the great world beyond the mountains and the cities and the ways of men. He was willing, once in a long time, to tell of his own early life. For nearly forty years he had lived here on Pillar Mountain, but before that he had come out of the East full of curiosity and love of adventure. But the strong taste of Western life had been too much for him. He had turned as wild as an Indian and on one unlucky day in a barroom at a mining camp he had killed his man. There was no law, really, to hound him, but Oliver Aytoun did not know that. He fled away into the mountains and reached this spot, and here he had remained.

At first he thought, as he struggled like a new Robinson Crusoe with the wilderness, that as soon as the memory of his crime had died out among men, he would go down among them again. But time made him love the mountains; he felt, too, like a poor flagellant, that there was some divine purpose, some divine punishment in this lonely life in which he found himself. He accepted the emptiness and the pain of it and hoped that he was being purged of sin. And every day, he told Philip, a remorseful time came to him during which he saw his victim lying with his head and shoulders hunched against the wall, young, and strong, and dead.

“I’ve got to be going,” said Philip.

At this, the other turned his head, but did not actually ask a question.

“Down, I mean,” said the boy, and pointed towards the lights in the valley.

There was such a quality in his voice that Loafer got up and came to look in his master’s face. However, the old man answered: “You’d better wait till you can lift the rock, my lad!” He added: “Or until you can budge it, at least; your father picked it out of the mouth of the spring, you know!”

Then he looked out not on the valley or the stars but on his own thoughts, seeing again the picture of the strong man. He had not spoken six times of Philip’s father, but every mention of him was lodged in the boy’s mind. First of all he had described how the man came, riding on a great black horse, with a two-year-old boy in the hollow of his arm. This big man wore a beard and mustaches and his hair was prematurely gray; his age might have been anything between twenty-five and thirty-five. He was handsome, he had the true eagle eye, and his ways were quick, his manner a little imperious.

He spent that night at the shack, and the next morning, while they were eating breakfast, the child went outdoors and presently they heard its choked cry. When they ran out, they found that it had fallen down into the spring; they could see it far beneath arm’s reach with face strangely not convulsed, looking up at them with great blue eyes.

The stranger seized the black rock which covered the spring and tore it up, then leaped into the bubbling well of water and brought up the child.

The water was as cold as ice; the little boy was weak with the shock and the fright of it; it was patent that he could not be carried forward that day, or perhaps the next. However, his father could not tarry, and promising to be back in the course of a week, he galloped away on his powerful black horse. Other men followed during several days, all asking if the rider of the black horse had gone that way, and all cursing and rushing away towards the valley trail when they heard the answer. It was plain that Philip’s father was no law-abiding citizen, and Oliver Aytoun’s opinion was that he had not returned for his child because of those same angry pursuers, who must have overtaken him and beaten him down by numbers, in spite of his gigantic strength. There was no way of learning the truth, because Aytoun never had learned the name of his guest; he had given his own family name to Philip.

On those few occasions when Aytoun spoke of the boy’s father, he did not try to make him out an ideal figure but frankly admitted that he seemed a rude, uneducated man; nevertheless the unknown had loomed gigantically in the mind of Philip Aytoun, and the great black rock which lay beside the bubbling of the spring had become a sacred symbol.

Once Aytoun had said, pointing to it: “You ought to be a good man, Philip. Your father paid down a heavy price for you!”

And if all the pounds of that mighty stone had been bright gold its value would not have been so great as it was now in the mind of the boy.

Always he had felt that he would need to be multiplied many, many times in order to make such a piece of a man as his father had been before him; and still beyond the words of Aytoun, he had the spectacle of the great black rock before him from day to day giving the giant of his imagination actual hands, at the least. Now with his own hands he had raised that stone, no doubt with more pain than yonder rider of the black horse, no doubt with a greater weakness thereafter, but the miracle had been accomplished. If he had been a trifle more religious, he would have felt that God was in his act.

“D’you think,” said Philip, “that a man who can handle the rock is strong enough to get along in the world?”

“I think so,” said Aytoun.

“I picked up the rock today,” said Philip.

Aytoun hurried to the spring. There was just enough starlight for Philip to mark the manner in which the old man remained half bent and still beside the squat shadow of the rock; just beyond him the spring was bubbling, so that old Aytoun seemed to be standing in the rising and falling glimmer of the water.

He came back after a time.

“I hope you will be a good man in the world,” said Aytoun.

Philip stood up beside the door.

“I am going to work very hard,” said he. “As soon as I have made some money, I’ll come back here for you, Uncle Oliver.”

To this the old man did not make a reply. Philip waited a long moment, the brightness of joy fading from his face by degrees, for he felt that already something had stepped between them after these many years.

Loafer suddenly began to whine. Because Philip felt great pain in his own heart, he leaned and patted the great head of the dog and spoke very gently to it. He no longer looked down at the lights, but he wished that the morning would come quickly and that he were away, with the sense of guilt left behind him.

He went to bed, and lay with closed eyes, breathing deeply and regularly as though in sleep; for he was afraid that Uncle Oliver might begin to talk to him.

CHAPTER III

THEY were up with the dawn, both of them exceedingly cheerful, for cold air makes the blood dance; and though this was the golden time of the autumn, on that high mountain-shoulder the nights and the mornings were very sharp.

But when they sat down at the table, the constraint fell upon Philip again, so that he ate busily, made a good deal of noise with his fork and knife, patted Loafer, looked out the door, spoke about the mist which was rolling in thin silver up the mountainside with the aspens standing in it like streaks of tarnished gold. Nevertheless, the more he busied himself and the more carelessly self-conscious he tried to appear, the more keenly was he aware of the thoughtful face of Oliver Aytoun.

At last he could stand it no longer; he pushed back his stool and cried out: “But, Uncle Oliver, I am coming back!”

The old man nodded and smiled; his eyes were looking into distance as though he had heard words read aloud out of a storybook.

“You’ll want this rifle,” he said at last, “and you’d better take this revolver.”

“They are your two best guns,” exclaimed Philip.

“Our two best guns,” answered Uncle Oliver.

Philip began to choke. He gathered up the dishes rapidly and began to wash them, scowling so that the tears in his eyes might not be seen. He felt so weak and uncertain that he could not believe that with these same hands he had lifted the black rock the day before.

Aytoun went about the preparation of a pack. He put into it some socks and shirts and flannel underwear and a bit of food. He spent some time examining the cartridge belts, but at last he selected one, and he had everything ready by the time the dishes were finished, and the dishcloth had been spread out neatly to dry.

At length Aytoun said: “If you ever should have a quarrel, I hope that you won’t use a gun, Philip.”

“No, no,” said Philip, “I won’t quarrel, because everyone down there is sure to know a great deal more than I do.”

“Perhaps they will,” said Oliver Aytoun, and closed his eyes.

“Not that you haven’t taught me a lot!” exclaimed Philip. “Dear Uncle Oliver, I shall remember every day of my life–”

“Hush,” said the old man. “I wish that I had a horse for you; but a mule will get you along.”

“Take one of your mules? I wouldn’t dream of it!”

“You must take one.”

Philip looked wildly about him. For many years all his dreams had walked down into the valley towards the sparkling lights and he had told himself that they lived a small, poor life here on the mountain, but never had he seen the truth so clearly as on this morning. It was a hovel that they lived in, and like beggars they had carved their existence in the wilderness from the hand of nature. But somehow his eye fastened and held upon the dishrag, because it made him think of fiercely cold winter evenings when the dishwater turned cold and greasy almost at once, and the tins rarely were really clean; one’s fingers would slip a bit upon them.

“I’ll take nothing more from you,” said Philip huskily.

There was no further argument. He stood at last outside the hut, with the pack strapped behind his big shoulders; the rifle he carried slung loosely in his hand; the revolver was worn on his right thigh. His clothes were tough woolens which fade with time, but which rather stiffen than wear thin. The cartridge belt sagged heavily about his hips and yet he scarcely felt its weight for every day he had strode across the difficult mountain heights until the metal of his body was like the supple steel of sword blades.

The mist had made the rocks and the soil black; from a pine tree near the house there was a constant dripping, like the sound of rain.

“I’d better be getting on,” said Philip.

“You’d better be getting on,” said the old man. “There’s Loafer showing you the way!”

In fact, Loafer was scouting down the mountainside, as though he knew in what direction his master would be walking.

“Good-by, Philip,” said Aytoun.

Philip took his hand.

“But I’m coming back!” said Philip desperately.

The other nodded.

“When you come to the town, get some cotton underwear,” he said. “It’ll be a lot warmer, down there in the valley.”

Philip marched stiffly away. Loafer, once sure that the journey was to be in that direction, disappeared into the distance. At the edge of a scattering of lodge-pole pines, Philip paused. He wanted to look back, but somehow he dared not risk another glance at the shack, and therefore he stumbled ahead. Aytoun had taught him three prayers; one of these he began to murmur to himself, hardly knowing what he said, but the words made it easier to breathe, and when he came out on the far side of the lodge-pole forest his mind was clear enough for him to see what lay about him.

The mist was much thinner, except in hollows here and there where the sun fell upon it and made it as blinding white as snow, but the golden aspens sparkled everywhere through the veil and the ground could be seen, tanned with withered grass except where the rocks broke through. Taking note of all this, Philip was oddly comforted, and he walked on at a greater pace.

He entered the belt of spruce and big pines where the air was wonderfully sweet and the cold of the night remained. Loafer came back to him, panting, his red-shot eyes gleaming with lust for game, but now for a time he kept just ahead of his master, glancing back over his shoulder, once in a while, as though to read the mind of the boy, and then trotting on. It was very easy for Loafer to change his home, thought Philip. One meal in three days was all he needed to have, and his sharp white teeth were sure to earn food at least that often; but he, a man, with a man’s weakness, needed far more.

Once he came to a stop, resolved to go home and say to Aytoun: “I’m not very old; I don’t know a great deal; I’ll stay with you a while longer, if I may!” But then he thought of the white, fierce winter when the winds come leaping out of the north and he went on again.

By noon he had come, after steady traveling, to easier country. The forest was taller than ever, but it was open, rarely choked with underbrush, and often it gave way to broad clearings where the tanned grass rolled pleasantly and smoothly over the hills.

In one of these clearings he heard the sweet, far-off tinkling of a bell that walked gradually towards him. Philip halted, full of wonder, but at last it was only a brindled cow that walked over the hill with a brown bell tied around her throat. She stopped and looked at him, but then passed on unafraid and drank from the stream that went down the valley.

Philip sat down near the same spot to eat a lunch. He found that his food supply consisted of slices of cold bacon, fried crisp and placed between thick bits of cornpone, and it seemed to him that there never had been food so delicious as this and nothing so good to drink as the bright water that swerved past his feet.

Loafer lay down to watch with his red eyes for crumbs. Bits that were thrown to him he slashed out of the air with his white fangs, capable of cutting through the flank of an elk to the life in a single stroke. However, he would need better and more food than this. A rabbit raised its foolish head from a tuft of grass a hundred yards away; Philip sent a bullet from his Winchester through that head, and Loafer was off at a gallop to bring in the prize. He brought it back and laid it at the feet of the master. It was a big, fat jack. With terrible desire, the jaws of Loafer slavered, and his belly muscles worked; so Philip gave it to him with a gesture and in an instant the rabbit was gone and Loafer curiously sniffing the bloodstains on the earth.

Philip studied him as he often had studied the dog before, for he saw in the greed and the cruelty and the hunger of Loafer a continual contrast with the goodness, the wisdom, the gentle grace of man, for whom this world and all the mountains and rivers and forests and beasts have been made. All has been prepared for him as by a kind father for a child; for so Oliver Aytoun had said, almost in those words. And Philip, looking up from the big wolfish dog to the hills, to the forest, to the sky, felt his heart run over with wonder and shame and gratitude. He felt that he was a weak and foolish creature, indeed; he prayed that he might become wiser, stronger, better, so that men would be willing to accept him as a brother!

After this, he set about reloading the rifle–for he wished to keep the magazine full; and the first thing he discovered was that one of the pockets was empty and into it had been thrust a little roll of paper.

He took it out and spread in his hand thirteen dollars.

One by one he examined the frayed slips of paper, as though on each there were written some special message for him. It was all the money that Uncle Oliver possessed, and he sprang to his feet and faced the upward slope, determined to return to the shack and give back the money.

That purpose, however, did not endure, for he saw that it was more than money that Aytoun had given to him; if he gave back the money, he could not return the kindness and the love with which they were enveloped.

Such was mankind; wise, gentle, tender of heart!

He wrapped up the remainder of the provisions and was fitting them into the knapsack when he heard the sharp clicking of the hoofs of a horse, and he saw a rider come around the shoulder of a hill, close to the little creek.

This man was pushing with whip and red spurs a little exhausted mustang which acknowledged the spurs and the quirt with a sudden flattening of the ears, but with no increase of speed. Philip watched the cruel progress with amazement. But he decided that he would not judge too quickly, for the world was a most complicated place and the motives and the needs of man might be quite past his understanding.

Just as he had come to this thought, the stranger marked him, and with an exclamation dropped the reins and jerked a rifle from the holster beneath his leg. Straight into the barrel of that rifle, Philip found himself gazing.

CHAPTER IV

THE rifle appeared to grow greatly in size as it came nearer; it presented a yawning black cavern to the gaze of Philip. Then, behind the gun he saw a man in a red flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled to the elbows over hairy forearms which were sunburned almost to blackness. He wore blue overalls, tightly belted at the waist. His open shirt exposed a black outcropping of thick hair on the neck and chest. His felt hat was worn slid back so far that both his cheeks and the tip of his nose had been fried to a bright red. He was fat, yet he appeared strong, active, and ready for work.

He said, as he drew closer: “Who in hell might you be?”

“I am Philip,” said the boy.

“Philip what?”

“I don’t know,” said Philip. “I have no other name.”

The man of the gun looked earnestly at the youth; then he gradually lowered his rifle.

“Got some chuck there?”

“Yes.”

“Gimme,” said he, and Philip gave the rest of his provisions.

The stranger stowed a whole section of corn bread and bacon in his fat face and yet he was able to speak around it, though in a painfully choked voice.

“This ain’t bad. Where you come from?”

“Yonder.”

“That’s Pillar Mountain. Nobody lives there.”

Philip was silent. He felt that he was having an odd introduction to the world, but no doubt there was much kindness behind the strange manner of the horseman.

“You got a horse nearby?” asked the rider, stuffing another wedge of food into his mouth before it was half empty.

“No,” said Philip.

The face of the stranger was so stretched with eating that he could show emotion only with his eyes, and these grew round with impatient anger. He tossed his head over his shoulder and glanced down the valley; then he stared back at the boy.

“What else you got around you?” he asked. “Lemme see that rifle. Butt first, mind you!”

Philip presented it duly, butt first. But he was greatly troubled, because he felt that the weapon was about to be taken from him if it were better than the stranger’s own gun, and that it was better seemed patent to the first glance. So he presented his rifle, but he kept his hold on the barrel of it, and at the same time he caught the barrel of the rider’s gun.

“Leave go, you poor fool!” said the other, with a snarl.

He wrenched mightily at the rifles; it was as though they were fixed in rock, and all at once he ceased his struggle. His eyes grew round again, but not with anger.

“What’s wrong with me havin’ a look at your gun?” he asked. “I’m not gunna steal it! Leave go of mine then, will you?”

“I don’t know,” said Philip. “I’m just thinking it over.”

“I’ll give you a hell of a quick start for your thinking, in another second,” said the fat-faced man.

He shifted his hand from the butt of Philip’s gun to the butt of a gun which thrust out of the saddle holster.

“Don’t do that, please,” suggested Philip. He poised his released gun as he spoke, so that it was like a club, held as light as a feather, and the other rolled his eyes up at the impending danger.

“Damnation!” he murmured under his breath, and he removed his hand from the revolver in his holster. “Call off your damn dog!” he added, his voice pitched several notes higher, in what was almost a squeak of fear.

Loafer had failed to understand a good deal of what was happening, but the brief struggle for the rifles was self- explanatory. He slipped around to the side of the stranger and a little to his rear, and then he crouched, waiting for no more than a whisper of command before he launched his great white fangs and a hundred odd pounds of muscle at the rider.

Philip drew back half a step and shifted the rifle in his hand so that the butt caught under his forearm, and his finger was on the trigger. In this fashion, it was like a revolver, and it pointed at the breast of the other.

“I don’t want to make any trouble,” said Philip. “You’re welcome to the food, if you’re very hungry; but I think you wanted to take my gun, and you haven’t any right to that.”

“Me?” said the fat man, making a gesture of protest and rolling his glance to the heavens. “Me? A thief? God bless me, me boy, what sort of a gent d’you take me for?”

“I beg your pardon, I’m sure,” said Philip.

“Me!” said the brown man, his excitement growing. “That have run cows on ten thousand acres, more or less. Me steal a gun! Well, son, I dunno how you was brung up!”

“I’m ashamed!” said Philip, growing a hotter crimson than before. “I really beg your pardon! If–if you’ll sit down here and finish your lunch, I’ll rub down your horse for you!”

“I dunno but what I will,” said the brown man, and cast another glance down the valley.

Then he dismounted and sat on a rock, munching the food and keeping his rifle across his knees. Still, from time to time, he looked down the hollow, but he bent most of his attention on Philip. The latter in the meantime was hard at work over the mustang. He knew all about taking care of exhausted animals, for sometimes the work on the trails of Pillar Mountain wore the two mules to a shadow, and Aytoun had taught the boy what to do in such a case.