“Uh-huh, and if it wasn’t for you one of us
would be dead, but that cuts no ice. You just plain lucked out with the Talrim boys ... they’d shoot you soon as look at you.”
When they rode into camp together several heads turned, but there was no comment. French noticed it, without smiling. He gave the impression of being coiled, ready to lash out.
He was eating when suddenly he put his plate down. “We got twenty-two hundred head, Chantry. You want more?”
“No ... let’s move ‘em out.”
“Daybreak?”
“Yes.”
“For Dodge?”
“No.”
They all looked up then, surprised. French was the most surprised of all, Chantry thought, for until that time Chantry had left all the handling of the cattle to him.
“We’ll take the longer route,” Chantry said, “by way of Clifton House.”
He realized he could not hope to compare his information about the area with that of French Williams, but they would not know how much or how little he knew, and must proceed accordingly.
“Have it your way,” French said mildly. “There’s more water, easier drives.” He grinned at him. “And it will take longer.”
Tom Chantry lay that night, looking up at the stars, and, tired as he was, there was little sleep in him. The way they would follow had been traveled by cattle herds occasionally, more often by pack trains, army commands, and mountain men, but every foot of it was alive with danger and trouble.
The men with whom he rode were silent toward him. They did not trust his courage, and were not prepared to respect his leadership. Most important, perhaps, he had a partner in whom he must trust to some extent, but who had everything to gain by not getting the cattle through on time, or at all.
Lying there in the darkness, he felt suddenly very much alone, but he remembered something his father had said. “Don’t ever be afraid of being alone, boy. The strongest man is he who stands alone.”
And then Pa had added, “To just that extent that you lean on somebody, or rely on them, to that extent you are a weaker man.”