The Long Shadow | Page 6

that he would be gone,
and those hours he meant to trim down as much as possible.
Out of the coulée where the high wall broke the force of the storm, he
faced the snow and wind and pushed on doggedly. It was bitter riding,
that night, but he had seen worse and the discomfort of it troubled him
little; it was not the first time he had bent head to snow and driving
wind and had kept on so for hours. What harassed him most were the
icy hills where the chinook had melted the snow, and the north wind,
sweeping over, had frozen it all solid again. He could not ride as fast as
he had counted upon riding, and he realized that it would be long hours
before he could get back to the cabin with a horse from Bridger's.
Billy could not tell when first came the impulse to turn back. It might
have been while he was working his way cautiously up a slippery
coulée side, or it might have come suddenly just when he stopped; for
stop he did (just when he should logically have ridden faster because
the way was smoother) and turned his horse's head downhill.
"If she'd kept the gun--" he muttered, apologizing to himself for the

impulse, and flayed his horse with his romal because he did not quite
understand himself and so was ill at ease. Afterward, when he was
loping steadily down the coulée bottom with his fresh-made tracks
pointing the way before him, he broke out irrelevantly and viciously:
"A real, old range rider yuh can bank on, one way or the other--but
damn a pilgrim!"
The wind and the snow troubled him not so much now that his face was
not turned to meet them, but it seemed to him that the way was rougher
and that the icy spots were more dangerous to the bones of himself and
his horse than when he had come that way before. He did not know
why he need rage at the pace he must at times keep, and it did strike
him as being a foolish thing to do--this turning back when he was
almost halfway to his destination; but for every time he thought that, he
urged his horse more.
The light from the cabin window, twinkling through the storm, cheered
him a little, which was quite as unreasonable as his uneasiness. It did
not, however, cause him to linger at turning his horse into the stable
and shutting the door upon him. When he passed the cabin window he
glanced anxiously in and saw dimly through the half-frosted glass that
Miss Bridger was sitting against the wall by the table, tight-lipped and
watchful. He hurried to the door and pushed it open.
"Why, hello," greeted the Pilgrim uncertainly, The Pilgrim was
standing in the centre of the room, and he did not look particularly
pleased. Charming Billy, every nerve on edge, took in the situation at a
glance, kicked the Pilgrim's dog and shook the snow from his hat.
"I lost the trail," he lied briefly and went over to the stove. He did not
look at Miss Bridger directly, but he heard the deep breath which she
took.
"Well, so did I," the Pilgrim began eagerly, with just the least slurring
of his syllables. "I'd have been here before dark, only one of the horses
slipped and lamed himself. It was much as ever I got home at all. He
come in on three legs, and toward the last them three like to went back
on him."

"Which hoss?" asked Billy, though he felt pessimistically that he knew
without being told. The Pilgrim's answer confirmed his pessimism. Of
course, it was the only gentle horse they had.
"Say, Billy, I forgot your tobacco," drawled the Pilgrim, after a very
short silence which Billy used for much rapid thinking.
Ordinarily, Billy would have considered the over sight as something of
a catastrophe, but he passed it up as an unpleasant detail and turned to
the girl. "It's storming something fierce," he told her in an exceedingly
matter-of-fact way, "but I think it'll let up by daylight so we can tackle
it. Right now it's out of the question; so we'll have another supper--a
regular blowout this time, with coffee and biscuits and all those
luxuries. How are yuh on making biscuits?"
So he got her out of the corner, where she had looked too much at bay
to please him, and in making the biscuits she lost the watchful look
from her eyes. But she was not the Flora Bridger who had laughed at
their makeshifts and helped cook the chicken, and Charming Billy,
raving inwardly at the change, in his heart damned fervently the
Pilgrim.
In the