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.
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