Page:The Pacific Monthly volume 17.djvu/34

tle of a mower traveled clown the wind. Stopping, he listened, while a shadow deepened his tan.

"Comes from Morrill's big slough," he muttered, whipping up the oxen. "Who 'll it be?"

Morrill, his near neighbor, was sick in bed, and the rattle could only mean that some one was trespassing on his hay rights—or rather the privilege which he claimed as such. For trespass such as he suspected, was simply the outward sign of a change in the settlement's condition. In the beginning, the first-comers had found an abundance of natural fodder growing in the sloughs, where, for lack of a watershed, the Spring thaws stored flood waters. There, was plenty, then, for all. But with thicker settlement, anarchy ensued. New neighbors grabbed sloughs on unsettled lands, which old-timers had sealed to themselves, and so forced them to steal from one another. Morrill, and the man on the wagon, had "hayed" together for the last three seasons; which fact explained the. significance he attached to the rattle of the alien mower.

"It's Hines!" he muttered, when, five minutes later, he sighted the mower from the crown of a roll. "The son-of-a-gun!"

The man was running the first swath around a mile-long slough which lay in the trough of two great rolls. It was a pretty piece of hay, thick, rank, and so long that one might have tied two spears together across a horse's back. Indeed, when the settler rattled down the bank and stopped his oxen, they were hidden to the horns. Which fact accounted for Hines not seeing them until his team brought up against the load.

"Hullo!" he cried, startled. "Didn't expect to see you, Carter!"

"Don't reckon you did," the settler replied. The shadow was now gone from his face. Cool, cheerful, unconcerned, he sat in the mower's path, swinging an easy leg. Hines gave him an uneasy glance.

"Been cutting poles?" he asked, affecting nonchalance.

"Yes. Corral needed raising a couple of rails." Carter carelessly answered.

Encouraged, Minis made an observation about the crops which the other answered, and so the talk drifted on until Hines, feeling that he had established a footing, said: "Well, I must be moving." But as he backed hs horses to drive around, the steers lurched forward and again blocked the way.

"Pretty cut of hay this." Carter ignored the other's savage glance. "Ought to turn Morrill thirty tons, don't you reckon?"

Hines shuffled uneasily in the mower seat. "I did n't allow," he growled, "as Morrill would want hay this year?"

"No?" The monosyllable was subtly sarcastic.

Hines flushed. "What kin a dead man do with hay?" he snarled.

"Is Morrill dead?"

"No! But Doc Ellis tol' me at Stinkin' Water as he couldn't live through Winter." He almost yelled it; opposition was galling his savage temper.

"So you thought you'd beat the funeral?" Carter jeered. "Savin' man! Well—he ain't dead yet!"

The challenge was unmistakable. But, though brutal, ferocious as a wolf, Hines shared the animal's preferences for an easy prey. Corner him, and he would turn, snarling, but his was the temper which takes no chances with an equal force. Now he lived up to his tradition. Viciously setting his teeth, he awaited the other's action.

But Carter was in no hurry. Leaning back on his load, he sprawled at ease, turning his eyes to the fathomless vault above. Time crept on. The oxen ceased puffing and cropped the grass about them, the horses switched impatience of the flies. The sun dropped and hung like a split orange athwart the horizon, the hollows blued with shadows which presently climbed the knolls and extinguished their golden lights. Soon the last red ray kindled the forest, silver specks dusted the darkening sky, only the West blushed with the afterglow.

Hines tired first. "Quitting time," he growled, backing bis horses.

"Took you a long time to find it out," Carter drawled, giving the words a significance the other had not intended. "But grace is always waiting for the sinner. So long! But, say!" he called after the disappearing; figure, "if you hear anyone inquiring after this slough, you can tell them as Morrill's goin' to cut it tomorrow."

Whipping up his oxen, he swung up the hank and headed south on Morrill's hay trail. Fresh from their rest, the steers