第54章

He stared in fascinated certainty at the river.All about it and pertaining to it had changed.The murmur and moan changed to a low, sullen roar.The music was gone.The current chafed at its rock-bound confines.Here was an uneasy, tormented, driven river! The light from the stars shone on dark, glancing, restless waters, uneven and strange.And while Bostil watched, whether it was a short time or long, the remorseless, destructive nature of the river showed itself.

Bostil began to pace the sands.He thought of those beautiful race-horses across the river.

"It's not too late!" he muttered."I can get the boat over an' back--yet!"He knew that on the morrow the Colorado in flood would bar those horses, imprison them in a barren canyon, shut them in to starve.

"It'd be hellish!...Bostil, you can't do it.You ain't thet kind of a man....Bostil poison a water-hole where hosses loved to drink, or burn over grass!...What would Lucy think of you?...No, Bostil, you've let spite rule bad.Hurry now and save them hosses!"He strode down to the boat.It swung clear now, and there was water between it and the shore.Bostil laid hold of the cables.As he did so he thought of Creech and a blackness enfolded him.He forgot Creech's horses.Something gripped him, burned him--some hard and bitter feeling which he thought was hate of Creech.Again the wave of fire ran over him, and his huge hands strained on the cables.The fiend of that fiendish river had entered his soul.

He meant ruin to a man.He meant more than ruin.He meant to destroy what his enemy, his rival loved.The darkness all about him, the gloom and sinister shadow of the canyon, the sullen increasing roar of the' river--these lent their influence to the deed, encouraged him, drove him onward, fought and strangled the resistance in his heart.As he brooded all the motives for the deed grew like that remorseless river.Had not his enemy's son shot at him from ambush? Was not his very life at stake? A terrible blow must be dealt Creech, one that would crush him or else lend him manhood enough to come forth with a gun.Bostil, in his torment, divined that Creech would know who had ruined him.They would meet then, as Bostil had tried more than once to bring about a meeting.Bostil saw into his soul, and it was a gulf like this canyon pit where the dark and sullen river raged.He shrank at what he saw, but the furies of passion held him fast.His hands tore at the cables.Then he fell to pacing to and fro in the gloom.Every moment the river changed its voice.In an hour flood would be down.Too late, then! Bostil again remembered the sleek, slim, racy thoroughbreds--Blue Roan, a wild horse he had longed to own, and Peg, a mare that had no equal in the uplands.Where did Bostil's hate of a man stand in comparison with love of a horse? He began to sweat and the sweat burned him.

"How soon'll Creech hear the river an' know what's comin'?" muttered Bostil, darkly.And that question showed him how he was lost.All this strife of doubt and fear and horror were of no use.He meant to doom Creech's horses.The thing had been unalterable from the inception of the insidious, hateful idea.

It was irresistible.He grew strong, hard, fierce, and implacable.He found himself.He strode back to the cables.The knots, having dragged in the water, were soaking wet and swollen.He could not untie them.Then he cut one strand after another.The boat swung out beyond his reach.

Instinctively Bostil reached to pull it back.

"My God!...It's goin'!" he whispered."What have I done?"He--Bostil--who had made this Crossing of the Fathers more famous as Bostil's Ford--he--to cut the boat adrift! The thing was inconceivable.