Bunch Grass | Page 8

at a ranch where we were known. Ajax stared through his
binoculars.
"What we're after," said he quietly, "is in sight."
He handed his glasses to me. I could barely make out a horseman,
herding along two animals. The plains were blazing with heat. In the
distance a soft blue haze obscured the horizon; faintly outlined against
this were three spirals of what seemed to be white smoke: three moving
pillars of alkaline dust.
"He can't git away from us," said old man Dumble.
Looking at him, my suspicions took flight. He was, as Ajax said,
keener than we to arrest the thief. His small eyes sparkled with
excitement; his right index-finger was crooked, as if itching for the
trigger; his lips moved. In fancy he was rehearsing the "Stand and
deliver" of an officer of the law!
"We kin ride him down," he muttered.

"Yes," said Ajax.
We looked to our girths and our pistols. It was unlikely that the thief
would show fight, but--he might. Then we mounted, and galloped
ahead.
"Forrard--for-r-rard!" shouted Ajax.
Within a few minutes, a quarter of an hour at most, the man we were
hunting would see us; then the chase would really begin. He would
abandon the footsore colts, and make for the hills. And so it came to
pass. Presently, we saw the horseman turn off at right angles; the jaded
colts hesitated, trotted a few yards, and stood still. A faint neigh floated
down wind.
"Doggone it!" exclaimed old man Dumble, "his horse is fresh. He's got
friends in the hills."
We had left the trail, and were pounding over the sage-brush desert. I
could smell the sage, strongly pungent, and the alkaline dust began to
irritate my throat; the sun, if one stood still, was strong enough to
blister the skin of the hands.
For three-quarters of an hour it seemed to me that the distance between
us and our quarry remained constant; but Dumble said we were falling
behind. The thief was lighter than any of us, and his horse was
evidently a stayer. The hills rose out of the haze, bleak and bare,
seamed with gulches, a safe sanctuary for all wild things.
"If the cuss was within range, I'd try a shot," said the old man.
"I'd like to make out who he is," said Ajax.
Suddenly the horse of the thief fell. We discovered later that the beast
had plunged into a piece of ground honeycombed with squirrel- holes.
The man staggered to his feet; the horse struggled where he fell, but did
not rise. His shoulder was broken.

"We have him!" yelled Dumble.
"Yes; we have him," repeated my brother. "Suppose we take a look at
him?"
The thief had abandoned all idea of escape. He stood beside his horse,
waiting for us; but at the distance we could not determine whether he
intended to surrender quietly or to fight. Ajax adjusted his glasses, and
glanced through them. Then, with an exclamation, he handed them to
me.
"Kin ye make him out, boys?" asked our neighbour.
"Yes," said I, giving back the glasses to Ajax. He handed them in
silence to old man Dumble. Then, instinctively, both our right hands
went to our belts. We were not quite sure what a father might do.
He did what should have been expected--and avoided. He dropped the
binoculars. Then he turned to us, trembling, livid--a scarecrow of the
man we knew;
"It's my boy," he said hoarsely. "And I thought he was the best boy in
the county. Oh God!"
A minute may have passed, not more. One guesses that in that brief
time the unhappy father saw clearly the inevitable consequences of his
own roguery and sharp practice. He had sowed, broadcast, innumerable,
nameless little frauds; he reaped a big crime. I looked across those
dreary alkaline plains and out of the lovely blue haze beyond I seemed
to see the Dumbles' spring wagon rolling to church. Mrs. Dumble's pale,
impassive face was turned to the bleak plains. At last I read her aright,
that quiet woman of silence. She knew the father of her children from
the outer rind to the inmost core. I thought of the pretty daughters, who
did not know. And out yonder stood the son.
Ajax beckoned me aside. We whispered together for a moment or two.
Then my brother spoke--

"We're going to lead home our colts," he said curtly; "and you can lead
home yours. We shall take better care of ours after this experience.
They won't be allowed to run wild in the back pasture."
"Boys--Quincey an' me----"
"Shush-h-h!" said Ajax. "That fellow out there is a long way off. I
could not swear in a court of law that he is the person we take him to be.
Whom