When A Mans A Man | Page 8

the cowboy fancied
that there was a touch of bitterness under the droll tone of his reply.
"Do you know, Mr. Acton, I have never been really hungry in my life.
It might be interesting to try it once, don't you think?"
Phil Acton laughed, as he returned, "It might be interesting, all right,
but I think I better tell you, just the same, that there's a ranch down
yonder in the timber. It's nothing but a goat ranch, but I reckon they
would take you in. It's too far to the Cross-Triangle for me to ask you
there. You can see the buildings, though, from here."
The stranger sprang up in quick interest. "You can? The Cross-Triangle
Ranch?"

"Sure," the cowboy smiled and pointed into the distance. "Those red
spots over there are the roofs. Jim Reid's place--the Pot-Hook-S--is just
this side of the meadows, and a little to the south. The old Acton
homestead--where I was born--is in that bunch of cottonwoods, across
the wash from the Cross-Triangle."
But strive as he might the stranger's eyes could discern no sign of
human habitation in those vast reaches that lay before him.
"If you are ever over that way, drop in," said Phil cordially. "Mr.
Baldwin will be glad to meet you."
"Do you really mean that?" questioned the other doubtfully.
"We don't say such things in this country if we don't mean them,
Stranger," was the cool retort.
"Of course, I beg your pardon, Mr. Acton," came the confused reply. "I
should like to see the ranch. I may--I will--That is, if I--" He stopped as
if not knowing how to finish, and with a gesture of hopelessness turned
away to stand silently looking back toward the town, while his face was
dark with painful memories, and his lips curved in that mirthless,
self-mocking smile.
And Philip Acton, seeing, felt suddenly that he had rudely intruded
upon the privacy of one who had sought the solitude of that lonely
place to hide the hurt of some bitter experience. A certain native
gentleness made the man of the ranges understand that this stranger was
face to face with some crisis in his life--that he was passing through
one of those trials through which a man must pass alone. Had it been
possible the cowboy would have apologized. But that would have been
an added unkindness. Lifting the reins and sitting erect in the saddle, he
said indifferently, "Well, I must be moving. I take a short cut here. So
long! Better make it on down to the goat ranch--it's not far."
He touched his horse with the spur and the animal sprang away.
"Good-bye!" called the stranger, and that wistful look was in his eyes

as the rider swung his horse aside from the road, plunged down the
mountain side, and dashed away through the brush and over the rocks
with reckless speed. With a low exclamation of wondering admiration,
the man climbed hastily to a higher point, and from there watched until
horse and rider, taking a steeper declivity without checking their
breakneck course, dropped from sight in a cloud of dust. The faint
sound of the sliding rocks and gravel dislodged by the flying feet died
away; the cloud of dust dissolved in the thin air. The stranger looked
away into the blue distance in another vain attempt to see the red spots
that marked the Cross-Triangle Ranch.
Slowly the man returned to his seat on the rock. The long shadows of
Granite Mountain crept out from the base of the cliffs farther and
farther over the country below. The blue of the distant hills changed to
mauve with deeper masses of purple in the shadows where the canyons
are. The lonely figure on the summit of the Divide did not move.
The sun hid itself behind the line of mountains, and the blue of the sky
in the west changed slowly to gold against which the peaks and domes
and points were silhouetted as if cut by a graver's tool, and the bold
cliffs and battlements of old Granite grew coldly gray in the gloom. As
the night came on and the details of its structure were lost, the
mountain, to the watching man on the Divide, assumed the appearance
of a mighty fortress--a fortress, he thought, to which a generation of
men might retreat from a civilization that threatened them with
destruction; and once more the man faced back the way he had come.
The far-away cities were already in the blaze of their own artificial
lights--lights valued not for their power to make men see, but for their
power to dazzle, attract and intoxicate--lights that permitted no kindly
dusk at eventide wherein a man might rest from his day's work--a quiet
hour; lights that revealed squalid