Jimmie’s punishment had gathered in intensity as the sting of a black icy night folded round, to find each man unresting yet, and empty with hunger. And through the dark and the aching exhaustion more than shame dogged Ted Douglas.
For every head of stock and every inch of brown earth on Mains was dear to him, and this night he doubted for the first time whether or no Jimmie was dearer still.
The boys rode back to camp unspeaking. They fed in silence until Lou gave the lead from where he lay in a bunk, his eyes eager, his long lithe limbs at ease. The sternness of coming judgment was on the other men to make them awkward and dumb, and into the tenseness Lou slid his cool voice.
“Any fellow going to ask Jimmie questions?”
“There’s lots of men can’t———” began Douglas; but Randal’s speech cut the words.
“You’re out of this, I think, Douglas. Jimmie has lost Mains twenty head of cattle, and it’s he who has to answer for it.”
Danny was a Heaven-built peacemaker. He took his teeth from a hunk of bread, saying:
“Leave it till ter-morrer, yer peripatetics, can’t yer? We ain’t none on us up ter ancient hist’ry ter-night.”
Jimmie spoke from the candle-box near the
