第19章 The Three Johns(6)

Weeks went by,and though Gillispie and Waite were often at Catherine's,Henderson never came.Gillispie gave it out as his opinion that Henderson was an ungrateful puppy;but Waite said nothing.This strange man,who seemed like a mere unto-ward accident of nature,had changed dur-ing the summer.His big ill-shaped body had grown more gaunt;his deep-set gray eyes had sunk deeper;the gentleness which had distinguished him even on the wild ranges of Montana became more marked.

Late in August he volunteered to take on himself the entire charge of the night watch.

"It's nicer to be out at night,"he said to Catherine."Then you don't keep look-ing off at things;you can look inside;"and he struck his breast with his splay hand.

Cattle are timorous under the stars.The vastness of the plains,the sweep of the wind under the unbroken arch,frighten them;they are made for the close comforts of the barn-yard;and the apprehension is con-tagious,as every ranchman knows.Waite realized the need of becoming good friends with his animals.Night after night,riding up and down in the twilight of the stars,or dozing,rolled in his blanket,in the shelter of a knoll,he would hear a low roar;it was the cry of the alarmist.Then from every direction the cattle would rise with trembling awkwardness on their knees,and answer,giving out sullen bellowings.Some of them would begin to move from place to place,spreading the baseless alarm,and then came the time for action,else over the plain in mere fruitless frenzy would go the whole frantic band,lashed to madness by their own fears,trampling each other,heed-less of any obstacle,in pitiable,deadly rout.

Waite knew the premonitory signs well,and at the first warning bellow he was on his feet,alert and determined,his energy nerved for a struggle in which he always conquered.

Waite had a secret which he told to none,knowing,in his unanalytical fashion,that it would not be believed in.But soon as ever the dark heads of the cattle began to lift themselves,he sent a resonant voice out into the stillness.The songs he sang were hymns,and he made them into a sort of imperative lullaby.Waite let his lungs and soul fill with the breath of the night;he gave himself up to the exaltation of mastering those trembling brutes.Mount-ing,melodious,with even and powerful swing he let his full notes fall on the air in the confidence of power,and one by one the reassured cattle would lie down again,lowing in soft contentment,and so fall asleep with noses stretched out in mute attention,till their presence could hardly be guessed except for the sweet aroma of their cuds.

One night in the early dusk,he saw Cath-erine Ford hastening across the prairie with Bill Deems.He sent a halloo out to them,which they both answered as they ran on.

Waite knew on what errand of mercy Catherine was bent,and he thought of the chil-dren over at the cabin alone.The cattle were quiet,the night beautiful,and he con-cluded that it was safe enough,since he was on his pony,to ride down there about mid-night and see that the little ones were safe.

The dark sky,pricked with points of intensest light,hung over him so beneficently that in his heart there leaped a joy which even his ever-present sorrow could not dis-turb.This sorrow Waite openly admitted not only to himself,but to others.He had said to Catherine:"You see,I'll always hev to love yeh.An'yeh'll not git cross with me;I'm not goin'to be in th'way."And Catherine had told him,with tears in her eyes,that his love could never be but a com-fort to any woman.And these words,which the poor fellow had in no sense mistaken,comforted him always,became part of his joy as he rode there,under those piercing stars,to look after her little ones.He found them sleeping in their bunks,the baby tight in Kitty's arms,the little boy above them in the upper bunk,with his hand in the long hair of his brown spaniel.Waite softly kissed each of them,so Kitty,who was half waking,told her mother afterwards,and then,bethinking him that Catherine might not be able to return in time for their break-fast,found the milk and bread,and set it for them on the table.Catherine had been writing,and her unfinished letter lay open beside the ink.He took up the pen and wrote,"The childdren was all asleep at twelv.

"J.W."

He had not more than got on his pony again before he heard an ominous sound that made his heart leap.It was a frantic dull pounding of hoofs.He knew in a second what it meant.There was a stam-pede among the cattle.If the animals had all been his,he would not have lost his sense of judgment.But the realization that he had voluntarily undertaken the care of them,and that the larger part of them belonged to his friends,put him in a passion of appre-hension that,as a ranchman,was almost in-explicable.He did the very thing of all others that no cattle-man in his right senses would think of doing.Gillispie and Hender-son,talking it over afterward,were never able to understand it.It is possible --just barely possible --that Waite,still drunk on his solitary dreams,knew what he was doing,and chose to bring his little chapter to an end while the lines were pleasant.At any rate,he rode straight forward,shouting and waving his arms in an insane endeavor to head off that frantic mob.The noise woke the children,and they peered from the window as the pawing and bellowing herd plunged by,trampling the young steers under their feet.

In the early morning,Catherine Ford,spent both in mind and body,came walking slowly home.In her heart was a prayer of thanks-giving.Mary Deems lay sleeping back in her comfortless shack,with her little son by her side.

"The wonder of God is in it,"said Catherine to herself as she walked home."All the ministers of all the world could not have preached me such a sermon as I've had to-night."So dim had been the light and so per-turbed her mind that she had not noticed how torn and trampled was the road.But suddenly a bulk in her pathway startled her.