The Ely miner., 1937-11-11
CATTLE KINGDOM

people. That's all gone, now"
He looked at her. She had never
seemed more lovely, more human,
more elementally desirable than she
looked now, a tired girl in cow
country work clothes, slim and lazy,
relaxed by the little fire as if she
had never known any other resting
place in her life. Her face was
quiet, almost grave; but though
her eyes looked drowsy there was a
little gleam in them that did not
come from the flame in front: a
small provocative glimmer of fire
within, which he had seen in her
eyes only two or three times in
his life-and never before the last
two or three days.
Their eyes met and held, his
steady and masked within, hers
seeming to laugh at him little,
half veiled by her lashes.
81 said," she reminded him, "that
if we were-in a situation like this,
there wouldn't be anything for me
to worry about, nothing at all. And
you said, if I thought that l was a
fool Well, you see" she met his
eyes again-'I win"
Still her eyes held, and he could
not understand why hers did not
drop. 81 can't believe, hardly" he
said, "that you have any idea what
sort of thing you're talking about" 7"
She smiled. "You think I don't?
That's because western men are
certainly the most conventional peo-
pie in the world"
Suddenly he angered. He had not
brought her here of his own will,
nor set them afoot, nor wished to
rest here with her. He would not
even have been on her range, or
within a days ride of it, if her in
terests had not drawn him in and
held him. She had made her de-
cisions in regard to him long ago,
and to change them he had spent
his every resource without any eff
feet. And now, at the last-it
amused her to torment him. 1t
seemed to him that there was a
capricious she-devil in that girl
perhaps in all women, given OPP
portunity.
''You see, I know you," she was
saying again.
The masks behind his ey e S
dropped away, and though his face
hardly changed his eyes Redeemed,
seeming to smoke with an angry
fire that came up behind. She her
self had lighted that fire, long ago.
It was fire that had driven him re-
lentlessly, making him rich; it could
have made him work for her all her
life-or it could break him again,
and drive him up and down the
world. Suddenly he did not know
whether he loved or hated this girl.
"I'll give you the same answer I
gave you in Inspiration, he said,
his words almost inaudible, even
against the stiffness of the night.
''If you think that, you're little
fool"
Still she met his eyes, so long, so
steadily, so knowingly that he won
dered for an instant what was hap
pening, was going to happen, there
under the coyote moon.
Then he saw her face change, so
that she was suddenly pale, and
the unreadable light in her eyes
went out, and she was like little
girl. Abruptly she pressed her face
hard into her hands.
He made his voice as hard and
cold as the rocks that hung over
them. "Now what?"
She answered in a muff1ed voice,
81 was wrong-I am afraid. II
fail every one -" She lifted her
head and glanced about her, as if
she were seeing this place for the
first time. A black shape lay be-
side the empty dust of the stream,
like great black bottle overturned
the carcass of Marian's dead
horse. Suddenly the girl turned side
ways, and dropped her head in her
arms upon the blanket. She began
to cry, terribly, silently except for
the choke of her breath.
He sat down against a rock and
waited. The gaunt, dead rock-hills
leaned over them sadly cold and
silent, blackened by the twisted
ghost shapes of the parched brush.
And the coyote moon was pale and
old, no longer golden, but greenish,
like phosphorus rubbed on dead
and frozen face.
Once she said, "But it's your
fault, too-that / fail-your fault as
much as my own"
His answer was perfectly honest.
"I don't know what you mean."