The Claim Jumpers Read Online Free PDF Page B

interested, inquiring of his colour, his size, his gaits, whether he had been tried.
    "I'll tell you what we will do," she suggested; "we'll go on an expedition some day. I have a pony too. We will fill up our saddlebags and cook our own dinner. I know a nice little place over toward Blue Lead."
    "I've one suggestion to add," put in Bennington, "and that is, that we go to-morrow."
    She looked a trifle doubtful.
    "I don't know. Aren't we seeing a good deal of each other?"
    "Oh, if it is going to bore you, by all means put it off!" cried Bennington in genuine alarm.
    She laughed contentedly over his way of looking at it. "I'm not tired then, so please you; and when I am, I'll let you know. To-morrow it is."
    "Shall I come after you? What time shall I start?"
    "No, I'd rather meet you somewhere. Let's see. You watch for me, and I'll ride by in the lower gulch about nine o'clock."
    "Very well. By the way, the band's going to practise in town to-night. Don't you want to go?"
    "I'd like to, but I promised Jim I'd go with him."
    "Jim?"
    "Jim Fay."
    Bennington felt this as a discordant note.
    "Do you know him very well?" he asked jealously.
    "He's my best friend. I like him very much. He is a fine fellow. You must meet him."
    "I've met him," said Bennington shortly.
    "Now you must go," she commanded, after a pause. "I want to stay here for a while." "No," as he opened his mouth to object. "I mean it! Please be good!"
    After he had gone she sat still until sundown. Once she shook her shoulders impatiently. "It issilly !" she assured herself. As before, the shadow of Harney crept out to the horizon's edge. There it stopped. Twilight fell.
    "No Spirit Mountain to-night," she murmured wistfully at last. "Almost do I believe in the old legend."
    * * *
    * * *
    Bennington awoke early the next morning, a pleased glow of anticipation warming his heart, and almost before his eyes were opened he had raised himself to leap out of the bunk. Then with a disappointed sigh he sank back. On the roof fell the heavy patter of raindrops.
    After a time he arose and pulled aside the curtains of a window. The nearer world was dripping; the farther world was hidden or obscured by long veils of rain, driven in ragged clouds before a west wind. Yesterday the leaves had waved lightly, the undergrowth of shrubs had uplifted in feathery airiness of texture, the ground beneath had been crisp and aromatic with pine needles. Now everything bore a drooping, sodden aspect which spoke rather of decay than of the life of spring. Even the chickens had wisely remained indoors, with the exception of a single bedraggled old rooster, whose melancholy appearance added another shade of gloom to the dismal outlook. The wind twisted his long tail feathers from side to side so energetically that, even as Bennington looked, the poor fowl, perforce, had to scud, careened from one side to the other, like a heavily-laden craft, into the shelter of his coop. The wind, left to its own devices, skittered across cold-looking little pools of water, and tried in vain to induce the soaked leaves of the autumn before to essay an aerial flight.
    The rain hit the roof now in heavy gusts as though some one had dashed it from a pail. The wind whistled through a loosened shingle and rattled around an ill-made joint. Within the house itself some slight sounds of preparation for breakfast sounded the clearer against the turmoil outside. And then Bennington became conscious that for some time he hadfelt another sound underneath all the rest. It was grand and organlike in tone, resembling the roar of surf on a sand beach as much as anything else. He looked out again, and saw that it was the wind in the trees. The same conditions that had before touched the harp murmur of a stiller day now struck out a rush and roar almost awe-inspiring in its volume. Bennington impulsively threw open the window and leaned out.
    The great hill back of the camp was so steep that the pines growing on its slope offered