Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-02-08

shook his head with teeth barred, in
playful p~retense of anger. Rather
kicked up his heels in disdain at the
threat and trotted alongside them.
Billy Louise rode with puckered eye
brows. Ward might neglect his stock,
but he would never neglect Rather
like this. And he must be at home,
since here was his horse. Or else -.
She struck Blue suddenly with her
rein-ends and went gathering up the
trail where the snow lay in shaded,
crusty patches trimmed with dirt. The
trail was untracked save by the o
stock. Where was Ward? What had
happened to him? She looked again
at Rather. There was no sign of re-
cent saddle marks along his side, no
telltale imprint of the cinch under his
belly. Where was Ward?
Blind, unreasoning terror filed Billy
Louise. She struck Blue again and
plunged into the icy creek crossing
neal the stable. She stopped there
Just long enough to see how empty
and desolate 1t was, and how the
horses and cattle had huddled against
it's sheItering wall out of the biting
winds; and how the door was shut
and fastened so that they could not
get in. She opened 1t and looked in,
and shut it again. Then she turned
and ran, white-faced, to the cabin.
Where was Ward? What had hap
pened to Ward? Thief or honest man,
t%reacherous or true-what had hap
pened to him?
Billy Louise saw the doorstep banked
over with old, crusted snow. Her
heart gave q jump and stopped still.
She felt her knees shake under her.
Her face seemed to pinch together, the
flesh clinging close to the bones. Her
whole being seemed to contract with
the deadly fear that gripped her. 1t
was like that chill morning when she
had crept out of her cot and gone over
to mommie's bed and had lifted NOM
mics hand that was hanging down. f..
She came to herself; she was rum
ming up the creek, away from the
cabin. Running and stumbling over
rocks, and getting tripped with her
riding skirt. She stopped, as soon as
she realized what she vas doing; she
stopped and stood with her hands
pressed hard against each side of her
face, forcing herself to calmness again
or at least to sanity. She had to go
back. She told herself so, many times.
So Billy Louise went back to the
cabin, slowly, with shaking legs and
a heart that fluttered and stopped,
fluttered and jumped and stopped, and
made her stagger as she walked. She
reached the doorstep and stood there
with her palms pressing hard against
her cheeks again. you've got to do
it. You've got to!" she whispered to
herself commandingly.
She never doubted that Ward was
inside. She thought she would find
him dead-dead and horrible, perhaps.
No other solution seemed to fit the
circumstances. He was in there, dead.
1t took courage to open that door,
but Billy Louise had courage enough
to open it, and to step inside and close
the door after her. She did not look
at anything in the cabin while she did
1t, though. She kept her eyelids down
70 that she only saw the floor directly
in front of the door. She had a n
of relief that it looked perfectly nat
ural, though dusty.
Throw up your hands!" came
hoarsely from the bunk. Billy Louise
gasped and pulled her gun, and
dropped %creuching to the floor. Also
she looked up.
From her crouching position she
looked into Wards fever-wild eyes,.
He was sitting up in the bunk, and he
was pointing his big forty-ive at her
relentlessly. "Get up from there!" he
ordered sternly. "Don't try any game
like that on me, Buck Olney! Get up
and go Over and sit in that chair. I've
got a few things to say to you"
Billy Louise somehow grasped the
truth, up to a certain point. Ward was
sick; so sick he didn't know her.
She thought she would better humor
him. She. got up and went and sat in
the chair as he directed.
Ward, keeping the gun pointing her
way, sneered at her in a way that
made the soul of Billy Louise crimple.
She faced him %big-eyed, too amazed
at the change in him to feel any fear
that he would harm her. He had whis-
kers two inches long. She wouldn't
have known him except for his hair
and that was terribly tousled; and his
eyes, though they were wild and angry.
His voice was hoarse, and while he
glared at her, he coughed with a hard,
croupy resonance.
$50 you came back, did yuh?" he
asked grimly at last. swell you didn't
get a chance to plug me in the back.
How long did you lay up there on the
cluff this time, waiting to catch me
when I wasn't looking? I've been wish
ing I'd left that rope SO 1t would have
hung you, you -" Chilly Louise
listened rOund-eyed to certain man.