Was he
losing the desert, and was the desert losing him? Were the chains of
humanity falling about him to drag him down to a tamed and sordid life?
A sudden hatred for all men, Mac Strann, Daniels, Kate, and even poor
Joe Cumberland, welled hot in the breast of Whistling Dan. The strength
of men could not conquer him; but how could their very weakness disarm
him? He leaped again on the back of Satan, and rode furiously back into
the storm.
CHAPTER XLI
THE FALLING OF NIGHT
It had been hard to gauge the falling of night on this day, and even the
careful eyes of the watchers on the Cumberland Ranch could not tell when
the greyness of the sky was being darkened by the coming of the evening.
All day there had been swift alterations of light and shadow,
comparatively speaking, as the clouds grew thin or thick before the
wind. But at length, indubitably, the night was there. Little by little
the sky was overcast, and even the lines of the falling rain were no
longer visible. Before the gloom of the darkness had fully settled over
the earth, moreover, there came a change in the wind, and the watchers
at the rain-beaten windows of the ranch-house saw the clouds roll apart
and split into fragments that were driven from the face of the sky; and
from the clean washed face of heaven the stars shone down bright and
serene. And still Dan Barry had not come.
After the tumult of that long day the sudden silence of that windless
night had more ill omen in it than thunder and lightning.
Pages:
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331