With the chill blast shut off and the flame burning
steadily once more in the lamp, a great silence besieged
the room, with a note of expectancy in it. Byrne
was conscious of being warm, too warm. It was
close in the room, and he was weighted down. It
was as if another presence had stepped into the room
and stood invisible. He felt it with unspeakable
keenness, as when one knows certainly the thoughts
which pass in the mind of another. And, more
than that, he knew that the others in the room felt
what he felt. In the waiting silence he saw that
the old man lay on his couch with eyes of fire and
gaping lips, as if he drank the wine of his joyous
expectancy. And big Buck Daniels stood with his
hand on the sash of the window, frozen there, his eyes
bulging, his heart thundering in his throat.
And Kate Cumberland sat with her eyes closed, as she
had closed them when the wind first rushed upon her,
and she still smiled as she had smiled then. And
to Byrne, more terrible than the joy of Joseph Cumberland
or the dread of Buck Daniels was the smile and the
closed eyes of the girl.
But the silence held and the fifth presence was in
the room, and not one of them dared speak.
CHAPTER VI
THE MISSION STARTS
Then, with a shifting of the wind, a song was blown
to them from the bunk-house, a cheerful, ringing chorus;
the sound was like daylight—it drove the
terror from the room. Joe Cumberland asked them
to leave him. That night, he said, he would sleep.
He felt it, like a promise. The other three went
out from the room.
In the hall Kate and Daniels stood close together
under a faint light from the wall-lamp, and they talked
as if they had forgotten the presence of Byrne.
“It had to come,” she said. “I
knew it would come to him sooner or later, but I didn’t
dream it would be as terrible as this. Buck, what
are we going to do?”
“God knows,” said the big cowpuncher.
“Just wait, I s’pose, same as we’ve
been doing.”
He had aged wonderfully in that moment of darkness.
“He’ll be happy now for a few days,”
went on the girl, “but afterwards—when
he realises that it means nothing—what then,
Buck?”
The man took her hands and began to pat them softly
as a father might soothe a child.
“I seen you when the wind come in,” he
said gently. “Are you going to stand it,
Kate? Is it going to be hell for you, too, every
time you hear ’em?”
She answered: “If it were only I!
Yes, I could stand it. Lately I’ve begun
to think that I can stand anything. But when I
see Dad it breaks my heart—and you—oh,
Buck, it hurts, it hurts!” She drew his hands
impulsively against her breast. “If it were
only something we could fight outright!”
Buck Daniels sighed.
“Fight?” he echoed hopelessly. “Fight?
Against him? Kate, you’re all tired out.
Go to bed, honey, and try to stop thinkin’—and—God
help us all!”
