“Do you mean that, mister?” the boy asked, almost incredulously.
Then, as the Padre had nodded, a sigh of thankfulness escaped the young lips, which were still covered with the crumbs of his recent meal.
“Say, I’m glad. Y’ see I was gettin’ tired. An’ ther’ didn’t seem to be no farms around—nor nuthin’. An’ it’s lonesome, too, at nights, lyin’ around.”
The man’s heart ached. He could stand no more of it.
“How long have you been sleeping—out?”
“Three nights, mister.”
Suddenly the Padre reached out a hand.
“Here, catch hold, and jump.”
The boy caught the strong hand, and was promptly swung up into the saddle behind his benefactor. The next moment they were speeding back over the trail to the lad’s new home. Nor was the new-born hope solely beating in the starving child’s heart. The lonely farmer felt that somehow the day was brighter, and the green earth more beautiful—for that meeting.
Such had been the coming together of these two, and through all the long years of weary toil since then they still remained together, working shoulder to shoulder in a relationship that soon became something like that of father and son. The Padre remained the farmer—in a small way. But the boy—well, as had been prophesied by his dead father, later on he grew big enough to plough the furrows of life with a strong and sure hand.
The man’s reflections were broken into abruptly. The time and distance had passed more rapidly than he was aware of. The eager animal under him raised its head, and, pricking its small ears and pulling heavily on the reins, increased its pace to a gallop. Then it was that the Padre became suddenly aware that the home stretch had been reached, and before him lay a long, straight decline in the trail which split a dense pine-wood bluff of considerable extent.
A man was lounging astride of a fallen pine log. His lean shoulders were propped against the parent stump. All about him were other stumps left by those who had made the clearing in the woods. Beyond this the shadowy deep of the woods ranged on every side, except where the red sand of a trail broke the monotony of tone.
Near by two horses stood tethered together by a leading rein. One was a saddle-horse, and the other was equipped with a well-loaded pack-saddle. It was no mean burden of provisions. The carcass of a large, black-tailed deer sprawled across the back of the saddle, while on one side were secured three bags of flour, and on the other several jack-rabbits were strung together. But the powerful beast remained unconcernedly nibbling at the sparse green peeping here and there through the carpet of rotting pine cones and needles which covered the ground.
The man’s eyes were half-closed, yet he was by no means drowsing. On the contrary, his mind was essentially busy, and the occasional puckering of his dark brows, and the tightening of his strong jaws, suggested that his thoughts were not always pleasant.
After a while he sat up. But his movement was only the restlessness caused by the worry of his thought. And the gaze he turned upon his foraging horses was quite preoccupied.
A change, however, was not long in coming. Simultaneously both horses threw up their heads, and one of them gave a sharp, comprehensive snort. Instantly the man’s large brown eyes lit, and a pleasant expectancy shone in their depths. He was on his feet in an instant, and his tall figure became alert and vibrant with the lithe activity which was so wonderfully displayed in his whole poise. He, too, had become aware of a disturbing element in the silent depths of the woods.
He moved across to the trail, and, glancing down it, from out of the silence reached him the distant, soft plod of hoofs in its heavy covering of sand. His look of satisfaction deepened as he turned back to his horses and tightened the cinchas of the saddles, and replaced the bits in their mouths. Then he picked up the Winchester rifle propped against a tree stump and turned again to the trail.
A moment later another horseman appeared from beyond the fringe of pines and drew up with an exclamation.
“Why, Buck, I didn’t reckon to find you around here!” he cried cordially.
“No.” The young man smiled quietly up into the horseman’s face. The welcome of his look was unmistakable. No words of his could have expressed it better.
The Padre sprang from his saddle with the lightness of a man of half his years, and his eyes rested on the pack-saddle on Buck’s second horse.
“For the—folks?” he inquired.
“Guess so. That’s the last of the flour.”
For a moment a shadow passed across the Padre’s face. Then it as suddenly brightened.
“How’s things?” he demanded, in the stereotyped fashion of men who greet when matters of importance must be discussed between them.
“So,” responded Buck.
The Padre glanced quickly round, and his eyes fell on the log which had provided the other with a seat.
“Guess there’s no hurry. Let’s sit,” he said, indicating the log. “I’m a bit saddle weary.”
Buck nodded.
They left the horses to their own devices, and moved across to the log.
“Quite a piece to Leeson Butte,” observed Buck casually, as he dropped upon the log beside his friend.
“It surely is,” replied the Padre, taking the young man in with a quick, sidelong glance.
Buck was good to look at, so strong, so calmly reliant. Every glance of his big brown eyes suggested latent power. He was not strikingly handsome, but the pronounced nose, the level, wide brows, the firm mouth and clean-shaven chin, lifted him far out of the common. He was clad simply. But his dress was perfectly suitable to the life of the farmer-hunter which was his. His white moleskin trousers were tucked into the tops of his Wellington boots, and a cartridge belt, from which hung a revolver and holster, was slung about his waist. His upper covering was a simple, gray flannel shirt, gaping wide open across his sunburnt chest, and his modest-hued silk handkerchief tied loosely about his neck.
“Leeson Butte’s getting quite a city,” Buck went on presently.
“That’s so,” replied the Padre, still bent upon his own thoughts.
After that it was quite a minute before either spoke. Yet there seemed to be no awkwardness.
Finally it was the Padre who broached the matters that lay between them.
“I got ten thousand dollars for it!” he said.
“The farm?” Buck’s interrogation was purely mechanical. He knew well enough that the other had purposely gone to Leeson Butte to sell the farm on which they had both lived so long.
The Padre nodded.
“A fancy price,” he said. “The lawyers closed quick. It was a woman bought it. I didn’t see her, though she was stopping at the hotel. I figured on getting seven thousand five hundred dollars, and only asked ten thousand dollars as a start. Guess the woman must have wanted it bad. Maybe she’s heard they’re prospecting gold around. Well, anyway she ought to get some luck with it, she’s made it easy for us to help the folks.”
Buck’s eyes were steadily fixed on the horses.
“It makes me feel bad seeing those fellers chasin’ gold, and never a color to show—an’ all the while their womenfolk an’ kiddies that thin for food you can most see their shadows through ’em.”
The eyes of the elder man brightened. The other’s words had helped to hearten him. He had felt keenly the parting with his farm after all those years of labor and association. Yet, to a mind such as his, it had been impossible to do otherwise. How could he stand by watching a small community,