Not a muscle of his body appeared to
move; he was as motionless as the trunk of a tree. But in his eyes and
his voice there was, as one of the ranchers said afterwards, "Hell--and
then some more."
"Listen to me," he said again, and his voice was low and husky now.
"Yesterday I was broncho-busting--"
Thereupon he told the whole story of what had happened since he had seen
Louise thrown from her chestnut on the prairie. He told how Louise was
too shaken and ill to attempt the journey back to Tralee, and how they
had camped where they were, near the dead horse.
As Orlando talked, the old man was seized by terrible hatred and
jealousy. "You needn't tell me the rest," he broke in, his hands
savagely opening and shutting. "I guess I understand everything."
The words had scarcely left his mouth when from the wagon a man said:
"Wait--wait, Mister. I got something to say."
He sprang to the ground, and ran between Mazarine and Orlando.
"This is where I come in," he said, as Louise's face appeared at an upper
window, and she listened.
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