An hour later I lay in the open starlight among the stones and brush, out where Steele and I always met.  He lay there with me, but while I looked up at the stars he had his face covered with his hands.  For I had given him my proofs of the guilt of Diane Sampson’s father.

Steele had made one comment:  “I wish to God I’d sent for some fool who’d have bungled the job!”

This was a compliment to me, but it showed what a sad pass Steele had come to.  My regret was that I had no sympathy to offer him.  I failed him there.  I had trouble of my own.  The feel of Sally’s clinging arms around my neck, the warm, sweet touch of her lips remained on mine.  What Steele was enduring I did not know, but I felt that it was agony.

Meanwhile time passed.  The blue, velvety sky darkened as the stars grew brighter.  The wind grew stronger and colder.  I heard sand blowing against the stones like the rustle of silk.  Otherwise it was a singularly quiet night.  I wondered where the coyotes were and longed for their chorus.  By and by a prairie wolf sent in his lonely lament from the distant ridges.  That mourn was worse than the silence.  It made the cold shudders creep up and down my back.  It was just the cry that seemed to be the one to express my own trouble.  No one hearing that long-drawn, quivering wail could ever disassociate it from tragedy.  By and by it ceased, and then I wished it would come again.  Steele lay like the stone beside him.  Was he ever going to speak?  Among the vagaries of my mood was a petulant desire to have him sympathize with me.

I had just looked at my watch, making out in the starlight that the hour was eleven, when the report of a gun broke the silence.

I jumped up to peer over the stone.  Steele lumbered up beside me, and I heard him draw his breath hard.

Chapter 11

THE FIGHT IN THE HOPE SO

I could plainly see the lights of his adobe house, but of course, nothing else was visible.  There were no other lighted houses near.  Several flashes gleamed, faded swiftly, to be followed by reports, and then the unmistakable jingle of glass.

“I guess the fools have opened up, Steele,” I said.  His response was an angry grunt.  It was just as well, I concluded, that things had begun to stir.  Steele needed to be roused.

Suddenly a single sharp yell pealed out.  Following it came a huge flare of light, a sheet of flame in which a great cloud of smoke or dust shot up.  Then, with accompanying darkness, burst a low, deep, thunderous boom.  The lights of the house went out, then came a crash.  Points of light flashed in a half-circle and the reports of guns blended with the yells of furious men, and all these were swallowed up in the roar of a mob.

Another and a heavier explosion momentarily lightened the darkness and then rent the air.  It was succeeded by a continuous volley and a steady sound that, though composed of yells, screams, cheers, was not anything but a hideous roar of hate.  It kept up long after there could have been any possibility of life under the ruins of that house.  It was more than hate of Steele.  All that was wild and lawless and violent hurled this deed at the Ranger Service.