Moreover, all of Andrew’s actions had come to
bear out this same expression of his face. If
he sat down his legs were gathered, and he seemed
about to stand up. If he walked he went with a
nervous step, rising a little on his toes as though
he were about to break into a run or as though he
were poising himself to whirl at any alarm. He
sat in this manner even now, under that dead gray
sky of sheeted clouds, and in the middle of that great
rolling plain, lifeless and colorless—lifeless
except for the wind that hummed across it, pointed
with cold. Andrew, looking from the dull glimmer
of his fire to that dead waste, sighed. He whistled,
and Sally came instantly to the call and dropped her
head beside his own. She, at least, had not changed
in the long pursuits and the hard life. It had
made her gaunt. It had hardened and matured her
muscles, but her head was the same, and her changeable,
human eyes, the eyes of a pet, had not altered.
She stood there with her head down, silently; and
Andrew, his hands locked around his knees, neither
spoke to her nor stirred. But by degrees the
pain and the hunger went out of his face, and, as though
she knew that she was no longer needed, Sally tipped
his sombrero over his eyes with a toss of her head,
and, having given this signal of disgust at being
called without a purpose, she went back to her work
of cropping the gramma grass, which of all grasses
a horse loves best. Andrew straightened his hat
and cast one glance after her.
A shade of thought passed over his face as he looked
at her. But this time the posse was probably
once more starting on out of Los Toros and taking
his trail. It would mean another test; he did
not fear for her, but he pitied her for the hard work
that was coming, and he looked almost with regret
over the long racing lines of her body. And it
was then, coming out of the sight of Sally, the thought
of the posse, and the disgust for the greasy bacon
in the pan, that Andrew received a quite new idea.
It was to stop his flight, turn about, and double like
a fox straight back toward Los Toros, making a detour
to the left. The posse would plunge ahead, and
he could cut in toward Los Toros. For he had
determined to eat once again, at least, at a table
covered with a white cloth, food prepared by the hand
of another. Sally was known; he would leave her
in the grove beside the Little Silver River. For
himself, weeks had passed since any man had seen him,
and certainly no one in Los Toros had met him face
to face. He would be unknown except for a general
description. And to disarm suspicion entirely
he would leave his cartridge belt and his revolver
with Sally in the woods. For what human being,
no matter how imaginative, would possibly dream of
Andrew Lanning going unarmed into a town and sitting
calmly at a table to order a meal?
CHAPTER 30
Retrospection made Andrew Lanning’s coming to
Los Toros a mad freak, whereas it was in reality a
very clever stroke. Hal Dozier would have been
on the road five hours before if he had not been held
up in the matter of horses, but this is to tell the
story out of turn.
