or two and git this thing patched up."

He paused, and Hardy's mind whirled backward, upsetting his fears,
unmaking his conclusions. It was Jeff the friend who spoke, Jeff
the peacemaker, who had stampeded him by the equivocation of his
words. But now the voice broke in again, apologetic, solicitous,
self-seeking.

"Besides, that son-of-a-gun, Bill Lightfoot, has been tryin' to cut me
out."

God! There it hit him hard. Kitty, the immaculate, the exquisite, the
friend of poets and artists, the woman he had loved and cherished in
his dreams--striven for by Jeff and Bill, revelling in the homage of
Mexicans and hard-drinking round-up hands, whose natural language was
astench with uncleanliness. It was like beholding a dainty flower in
the grime and brutality of the branding pen.

"I'm sorry, Jeff," he said, in a far-away voice. "I--I'd do anything I
could for you--but I'm afraid of those sheep."

He dragged miserably through the remnant of their conversation and
then lay staring at the stars while his hulk of a partner, this great
bear who in his awkward good nature had trampled upon holy ground,
slept peacefully by his side. The Pleiades fled away before Orion, the
Scorpion rose up in the south and sank again, the Morning Star blinked
and blazed like a distant fire, such as shepherds kindle upon the
ridges, and still Hardy lay in his blankets, fighting with himself.
The great blackness which precedes the first glow of dawn found him
haggard and weary of the struggle. He rose and threw wood on the
coals of last night's fire, cooked and ate in silence, and rode away.
There was a great burden upon his soul, a great fire and anger in his
heart, and he questioned the verities of life. He rode up the river
gloomily, searching the southern wilderness with frowning, bloodshot
eyes, and once more, far to the east where the jagged cliffs of the
Superstitions sweep down to the gorge of the Salagua and Hell's Hip
Pocket bars the river's sweep, he saw that vague, impalpable haze--a
smoke, a dust, a veil of the lightest skein, stirred idly by some
wandering wind, perhaps, or marking the trail of sheep. And as he
looked upon it his melancholy gaze changed to a staring, hawk-like
intentness; he leaned forward in the saddle and Chapuli stepped
eagerly down the slope, head up, as if he sniffed the battle.

CHAPTER XV

THE CATASTROPHE

A demon of unrest, twin devil to that which had so clutched and torn
at the sensitive s