yourn? We got ter wipe that suckermantal hint o’ Murray’s out on him, an’ you can bet all your fambly we’re goin’ ter do it.”
Lou’s colt was raw and too eager. But he had been bred on the high country beyond Changing Creek where Art Scannell’s black mare ran last year.
“And it’s there she’ll go back,” said Murray. “With young Art atop of her while there’s life in him. Drunk or sane, you can’t shake him off anything with hide on.”
The air stank of mud and wet flax; the grate of shingle came under the hoof, and Tod’s gelding slipped on smooth ice where the star-reflection was faint.
Lou dropped his cheek to the mane, his blue eyes sifting the night for the dark smudge that would be the Glory’s dam-line. They missed contact by the width of a hand, and Carr said, unmoved:
“Ten fut o’ water the Glory has behind them sand-bags, now. Good fur us Lou picked ’em up.”
Tussock made evil foot-hold again; then a nigger-head swamp, sharp with ice, and foul with water that splashed to the eye-brows. All around rose black swan, wide-winged and crying to the night like spirits turned back from the world beyond. The horses took their own way, headlong; and with loose rein. Tod was crossing himself. For ghost-lights played
