Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 72: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

308 devoted to Billie and his arraignment had been a trial to her. ‘‘ Oh, Miss Geraldine, to see you going off on such a day, even with your uncle. It’s tempting Provi- dence.”’ But the girl freed herself impatiently. She was suffering so poignantly that the mention of his name was more than she could bear. Through the window she saw Hoyt leading her saddled horse from the barn. ‘Tell him—tell him, some day we will pay him back,” she said, and went out of the door into the storm. er CHAPTER AVIL AT THE WEED PATCH. HI beginning of the storm found Billie Stranger a long way from home with the wind at his back. He had not followed Jack after all, for when he saw the change coming he thought it best to go after a bunch of his two- year-olds which pastured in another part of the range. He knew just what fool- ishness a two-year-old is capable of, and decided it was best to bring them into the home pasture before the storm broke. But when he reached the range there was no sign of them. Before the sweeping wind the plain was empty of life: sage brush and greasewood bent before the coming storm and the brown grass lay Hat. The bunch was gone. But he wasted no time in speculation. He knew they had sensed the storm and moved before it, so he followed. He was worried, for it was tn this direc- tion that his fences were least trustworthy. If the cattle found a weak place, there was no saying where they might stop. It was snowing lightly when he reached the boundary line, but he could see in all directions that there was still no sign of them, and his heart sank. He was pre- pared for misfortune when the foun the wire down. The cattle were out, and he braced himself. for a grilling search and tried not to curse a cow-puncher’s luck too bitterly. It was midday before he found them. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Po They were drifting with the wind, getting further from home and safety every mo- ment, and to turn them was a job that took every ounce of ambition out of his horse and himself, but he never thought of giving up. It was his job to get them go- ing in the right direction, and Widow Green knew that it was her job, too. And at last it was done; home lay in front of them, and he had only to keep the strag- elers with the herd. But he was a long, long way from home. and the storm was swiftly developing into what seemed an impassable white wall that pierced through flesh and blood and blinded eyes and stopped breath. ‘They could not go on much longer, and he began to think of a place where he might bunch them in safety until the wind dropped. In the bunch of runaways there was a large. percentage of his precious whitefaces, and their loss would mean a sorry reckoning for the Three Nines. The edged wind with its frozen tears bit into his body, and his horse shivered ancl shrunk between his knees: ‘There was no fight left in Widow Green. She tucked her tail and carried her sullen head low. She knew they were in for a norther, and she wonclered where she would shelter her shivering hide that night. And Billie wondered too. He had onlv a vague idea of their location. The whirl- ing snow, the sullen advance of the cattle, and their efforts to turn aside the moment his attention was relaxed for a second had clouded his sense of direction until he de- pended solely on the wind to guide him. He knew that as long as they went with it in their faces they must be approaching home, but as the day advanced he began to lose hope of reaching there that night. He could make nothing of the prospect before him, only he knew he had not come to the line fence of his own property: it was too fantastic to imagine that chance had led them through the break. And as the day grew darker and he realized that slow as their travel had been, they must have long since passed this point, he abandoned hope of reaching the ranch and begun to cast about for a shelter for him- self and the cattle, strugeling anwillingl <4 CO