oftly and not waken the
children. With each turn of the screw, as her numbed consciousness rallied
and responded afresh to the hideous realization of this thing, there came
no release from the tyrannous hold of petty detail. She remembered that
she must be back at noon to hold post-office, and there would be the
endless comedy to be played once more with her cavaliers. They must never
suspect from word or look of hers. And there was the dance to-night at the
Benton ranch--she hid her face in her hands. Ah, no, she could not do this
thing! And yet they must not suspect. She must contrive to give the
impression that Jim had cheated the rope. Yes, she must go and dance, and,
if need be, dance with his very murderers. Jim's children were to have the
"clean start" that he intended, and they would have to get it here. There
was no money for an exodus and a beginning elsewhere.

Alida still crouched beside the long, even tarpaulin roll that Judith had
prepared with hands that knew not what they did. But now Judith gently
roused her and put in her hand a spade; already she herself had begun. But
Alida stared at it dully, as if she did not understand. Then Judith
pointed to something black that had begun to wheel in the sky, wheel, and
with each circular swoop come closer to the roll of tarpaulin. Then Alida
knew, and, taking the spade, she and Judith began to dig the grave.

XX

The Ball

The dance in the Benton ranch was the great social event of the midsummer
season. The Bentons had begun to give dances in the days of plenty, when
the cattle industry had been at its dizziest height; and they had
continued to give dances through all the depressing fluctuations of the
trade, perhaps in much the same spirit as one whistles in the dark to keep
up his courage. Thus, though cattle fell and continued to fall in the
scale of prices till the end no man dared surmise, the Benton "boys"--they
were two brothers, aged respectively forty-five and fifty years--continued
to hold out facilities to dance and be merry.

All day strange wagons--ludicrous, makeshift things--had been discharging
loads of women and children at the Benton ranch, tired mothers and their
insistent offspring. To the women this strenuous relaxation came as manna
in the wilderness. What was the dreary round of washing, ironing, baking,
and the chain of household tasks that must be done as primitively as in
Genesis, if only