down, canteen at hand, to wait the turn of the card that was to decide his destiny in the Dry Wood country.
There was a little lemon-rind of new moon in the south-west, which was down before ten o'clock, leaving the earth starlit, and full of baffling shadows. It was as if the dregs of night had settled to the ground, like the precipitate of clarifying water, in a shallow stratum of obscuration. The tops of trees along Rawlins' stream, the roof of his house, the peaks of his haystacks, reached above this low-lying darkness. Below that height things were indefinite, merged in the low-pressing shades. The ear, not the eye, must be a man's sentinel a night like that.
It was well enough, Rawlins thought, accustomed as he was to night-watches over herds. A man could not strike a match behind house or haystack without betraying his presence; in the quiet of the valley, no live stock except Graball to stamp and make a noise, Hewitt's men would have to ride on air to surprise him. Graball was picketed well out of the way of wild bullets under the bank of the creek, yet near enough to reach him if the desperate necessity of getting away in a hurry should come.
A surprise was out of the question, Rawlins assured himself. What he should do when they came must be resolved by the event. Planning and imagining ahead was only a waste and strain. He hoped it would not be necessary even to wound anybody, although he knew they would not come with any such charitable reservations toward him. Justice and the law were on his side, which was a comfortable assurance, although he
