on--due to
the continual tinkering of Malcolm, who liked to spend his idle hours
there--and Malcolm lighted a candle, placed it on the rough table, took
a deck of cards from the shelf, and the three played "pitch" for two
hours. At the end of that time Malcolm said he was going to bed. Dade
signified that he intended doing likewise. He occupied half of
Calumet's bed. Since the day following the clash with Dade, Calumet
had insisted on this.

"Just to show you that what you said ain't botherin' me a heap," he had
told Dade. "You're still yearlin' and need some one to keep an eye on
you, so's some careless son of a gun won't herd-ride you."

That Dade accepted this in the spirit in which it was spoken made it
possible for them to bunk together in amity. If Dade had "sized up"
Calumet, the latter had made no mistake in Dade.

Dade snuffed out the candle and followed Malcolm out. The latter went
immediately to the ranchhouse, but Dade lingered until Calumet stepped
down from the door of the bunkhouse.

"Bed suits me," suggested Dade. "Comin'?"

"I'm smokin' a cigarette first," said Calumet. "Mebbe two," he added
as an afterthought.

He watched Malcolm go in; saw the light from the lamp on the table in
the kitchen flare its light out through the kitchen door as Dade
entered; heard the door close. The lamp still burned after he had seen
Dade's shadow vanish, and he knew that Dade had gone upstairs. Dade
had left the light burning for him.

Alone, Calumet rolled the cigarette he had promised himself, lit it,
and then, in the flood of moonlight, walked slowly around the
bunkhouse, estimating the material and work that would be necessary to
repair it. Then, puffing at his cigarette, he made a round of the
corral fence. It was a long trip, and he stopped twice to roll new
cigarettes before he circled it. Then he examined the stable. This
finished, he stepped over to the corral fence, leaned his arms on the
top rail, and, in the moonlight that came over his shoulder, reread his
father's letter, making out the picturesque chirography with difficulty.

As during the first days of his return, when he had watched the army of
memories pass in review, he lingered over them now, and, to his
surprise, discovered that he felt some little regret over his own
conduct in those days preceding his leave-taking. To be sure, he had
been only a boy at that time, but he had been a man since, and the cold
light of reason sh