The younger man watched the departing figure and felt the irony of the separation that keeps us silent even when we wish to be nearest and most helpful to our friends and makes our words a mockery.
"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget. Good-night," he said.
When a few minutes later the young man sauntered out to the barns, everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of the great herd affected him deeply. Twice he made the circuit of the buildings, but finding nothing amiss returned to his place. The sound of the horses feeding had long since ceased. The sleepy murmur of the cattle was lower and more regular. In the increasing coldness the vapor of their breath, even though the night was dark and moonless, arose in an indistinct cloud, like the smoke of smouldering camp-fires over the tents of a sleeping army. For two days the man had been doing the heaviest kind of work. Gradually, amid much opening and closing of eyelids, consciousness lapsed into semi-consciousness, and he dozed.
Suddenly--whether it was an hour or a minute afterwards, he did not know--he awoke and sat up listening. Some sound had caught and held his sub-conscious attention. He waited a moment, intent, scarcely breathing, and then sprang swiftly to his feet. The sound now came definitely from the sheds at the left. It was the deep chesty groan of a horse in pain.
Once upon his feet, Ben Blair ran toward the barn, not cautiously but precipitately. He had not grown to maturity amid animals without learning something of their language; but even if such had been the case, he could scarcely have mistaken that sound. Mortal pain and mortal terror vibrated in those tones. No human being could have cried for help more distinctly. The frozen snow squeaked under the rancher's feet as he ran. "Stop there!" he shouted. "Stop there!" and throwing open the nearest door, unmindful of danger, he dashed into the interior darkness.
The barn was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the horses in his ears--for now he detected more than one voice. A growing realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to follow, but the sound of pain and struggle kept him back. He struck a match, held it like a torch above him, moved ahead, stopped. The flame burned down the dry pine until it reached his fingers, blackened them, went out; but he did not stir. He had expected the thing he saw, expected it at the first cry he heard; yet infinitely more horrible than a picture of imagination was the reality. He did not light another match, he did not wish to see. To hear was bad enough--to hear and to know. He started for the door; and behind him three great horses, hopelessly maimed and crippled, struggled to rise, and failing, groaned anew.