Ben Blair | Page 5

he did not turn. Cap followed coat, mittens cap;
then, suddenly remembering, he turned to the stove and scattered fresh
chips upon the glowing embers.
"Good-bye, mamma," said the boy.

The mother had been watching him, although she gave no sign. "Where
are you going, sonny?" she asked.
"To town, mamma. Someone ought to know you're sick."
There was a moment's pause, wherein the mongrel whined impatiently.
"Aren't you going to kiss me first, Benjamin?"
The little lad retraced his steps, until, bending over, his lips touched
those of his mother. As he did so, the hand which had lain upon the
coverlet shifted to his arm detainingly.
"How were you thinking of going, son?"
A look of surprise crept into the boy's blue eyes. A question like this,
with its obvious answer, was unusual from his matter-of-fact mother.
He glanced at her gravely.
"I'm going afoot, mamma."
"It's ten miles to town, Benjamin."
"But you and I walked it once together. Don't you remember?"
An expression the lad did not understand flashed over the white face of
Jennie Blair. Well she remembered that other occasion, one of many
like the present, when she and the little lad had gone in company to the
settlement of which Mick Kennedy's place was a part, in search of
someone whom after ten hours' delay they had succeeded in bringing
home,--the remnant and vestige of what was once a man.
"Yes, I know we did, Bennie."
The boy waited a moment longer, then straightened himself.
"I think I'd better be starting now."
But instead of loosening its hold, the hand upon the boy's shoulder

tightened. The eyes of the two met.
"You're not going, sonny. I'm glad you thought of it, but I can't let you
go."
Again there was silence for so long that the waiting dog, impatient of
the delay, whined in soft protest.
"Why not, mamma?"
"Because, Benjamin, it's too late now. Besides, there wouldn't be a
person there who would come out to help me."
The boy's look of perplexity returned.
"Not if they knew you were very sick, mamma?"
"Not if they knew I was dying, my son."
The boy took off hat, mittens, and coat, and returned them to their
places. Never in his short life had he questioned a statement of his
mother's, and such heresy did not occur to him now. Coming back to
the bunk, he laid his cheek caressingly beside hers.
"Is there anything I can do for you, mamma?" he whispered.
"Nothing but what you are doing now, laddie."
Tired of standing, the mongrel dropped within his tracks flat upon his
belly, and, his head resting upon his fore-paws, lay watching intently.
* * * * *
When the door of Mick Kennedy's saloon closed with an emphasis that
shook the very walls, it shut out a being more ferocious, more evil, than
any beast of the jungle. For the time, Blair's alcohol-saturated brain
evolved but one chain of thought, was capable of but one emotion--hate.
Every object in the universe, from its Creator to himself, fell under the
ban. The language of hate is curses; and as he moved out over the

prairie there dripped from his lips continuously, monotonously, a
trickling, blighting stream of malediction. Swaying, stumbling,
unconscious of his physical motions, instinct kept him upon the trail; a
Providence, sometimes kindest to those least worthy, preserved him
from injury.
Half way out he met a solitary Indian astride a faded-looking mustang,
and the current of his wrath was temporarily diverted by a surly
"How!" Even this measure of friendliness was regretted when the big
revolver came out of the rancher's holster like a flash, and, head low on
the neck of the mustang, heels in the little beast's ribs, the aborigine
retreated with a yell, amid a shower of ill-aimed bullets. Long after the
figure on the pony had passed out of range, Blair stood pulling at the
trigger of the empty repeater and cursing louder than before because it
would not "pop."
Two hours later, when it was past noon, an uncertain hand lifted the
wooden latch of the Big B Ranch-house door, and, heralded by an
inrush of cold outside air, Tom Blair, master and dictator, entered his
domain. The passage of time, the physical exercise, and the prairie air,
had somewhat cleared his brain. Just within the room, he paused and
looked about him with surprise. With premonition of impending trouble,
the mongrel bristled the yellow hair of his neck, and, retreating to the
mouth of his kennel, stood guard; but otherwise the scene was to a
detail as it had been in the morning. The woman lay passive within the
bunk. The child by her side, holding her hand, did not turn. The very
atmosphere of the place