Buck looked up as two crows flew low over his head and passed on their way, croaking out their alarm and dissatisfaction. Mechanically his eyes followed their movements. For he was well versed in the sights, and sounds, and habits of his world.
Presently he turned again to the trail, and the expression of his eyes had changed to one of speculation. Cæsar was traveling eagerly. He had not yet forgotten that farther on along that trail lay the old barn which had been his home from his earliest recollections.
Buck had had no intention of making this visit to the farm when he left Beasley's saloon. He had not had the remotest intention of carrying out the man's broadly-given hint. A hint from Beasley was always unwelcome to him, and generally roused an obstinate desire to take an opposite course. Nor was it until he reached the ford of the creek that the significance of the man's tone penetrated his dislike of him. Quite abruptly he made up his mind to keep straight on. Curiosity, added to a slight feeling of uneasiness, urged him, and, leaving the ford behind him, he kept on down the trail.
His decision once taken, he felt easier as he rode on. Besides, he admitted to himself now, he was rather thankful to the saloon-keeper for providing him with something in the nature of an excuse for such a visit. He was different from those others, who, in perfect confidence and ignorance, required not the least encouragement to persecute Joan with their attentions. He found it more than difficult to realize that his visits were anything but irksome to the new owner of the farm now that she had settled down with the adequate support of her "hired" man.
Joan's graciousness to him was the one great delight of his every waking hour. But he dreaded the moment when her manner might become the mere tolerance she displayed toward Ike and Pete, and any of the others who chose to make her farm a halting-place. So his visits had become rarer; far rarer than made for his own peace of mind, for Joan was always in his thoughts.
Tramping the long trail of the mountains her smiling eyes were always somewhere ahead of him, encouraging him, and shedding a radiance of hope and delight upon the dullest moments of his routine. Never for one moment was the delightful picture of her presence absent from his thoughts. And to him there was nothing in the whole wide world so fair, and sweet, and worthy of the worship he so willingly cast at her feet.