30,000 On the Hoof (38 page)

Logan's big square jaw wobbled and dropped over a query he could not enunciate.

"That's my joke on you, Dad. And I think it's a peach."

"Abe!" cried Barbara.

"You sure are a locoed old cattleman. Here you've been moping around Sycamore, heart-broke and pocket-broke, when you've got sixteen or eighteen hundred head of cattle worth fifty dollars a head."

"For God's sake, son, you wouldn't play a joke--like that--on your poor old Dad?" implored Logan.

"I wouldn't if it were a lie, Dad, but this is true. Absolutely true.

I'll show you to-morrow."

It seemed to Lucinda that while she watched with beating heart and bated breath, a slow change worked in her husband. He stared into the fire. A rumbling cough issued from his broad breast. Then he stood up, apparently seeing straight through the cabin wall. He expanded. His shoulders squared. His grey eyes began to kindle and gleam, and all the slack lines and leaden shades vanished ruddily from his visage. When Logan reached for the old black pipe and the little buckskin bag, and' began to stuff tobacco in the bowl, then Lucinda realized she was witness to a miracle.

She stifled a sob which only Barbara heard, for she came swiftly to Lucinda, whispering the very truth that seemed so beautiful and so distracting. Logan bent down to pick up a half-burnt ember, which he placed upon his pipe. Then he puffed huge clouds of smoke, out of which presently stood his shaggy, erect head, his shining face, his eagle look.

Lucinda saw her old Logan Huett with something infinite and indescribable added.

"Wal, son," he drawled in his old, cool, easy way. "You Can't never tell about this here cattle business. Quien sabe? as Al used to say... I reckon I was kinda sick in my gizzard... Now let me see. A few cattle makes a hell of a difference. Say we got fifteen or sixteen hundred head. All right. You'll rustle some cowboys and cut out all except the youngest stock. I reckon that'd be half, say eight hundred head. You'll drive them to Flagg and sell... Eight hundred at fifty?--Forty thousand dollars, son!... You'll bank that money. You'll buy a truck and a car--and all you can think of--and Luce can think of--and Bab can think of--and new guns for me. Aghh!... Then you rustle the cars and all that stuff home... Abe, we'll begin cattle-raising again. And we'll bring little Abe up to know the game. We'll never make the mistakes I Made... The ways of God are inscrutable. I reckon I'll never forget again... And after all I'll never miss that thirty thousand head."

THE END