Free Following the Grass by Harry Sinclair Drago Page A

traverses the saddle—a short cut with a saving of many miles for one traveling north or south.
    In times past, Angel Irosabal’s herders—his sons and his grandsons—had made use of that short cut across the mountain, but this particular spring, as if by common consent, they avoided it. For three weeks the Basque herders had been going north, driving not less than fourteen thousand sheep.
    In the late afternoon of this day—the twenty-first of May, to be exact—a slowly moving dust cloud hovered above the yellow road. It marked the progress of the last flock of the year on its way to the high hills of the Reserve. This band was not a large one, and the two herders in charge of it wallowed along in the dust unconcernedly.·
    One of the two was only a slip of a boy, the other a black-visaged man, heavy of jaw and narrow-eyed. When they spoke, which was seldom, they addressed each other in Basque.
    â€œIs it far to the spring, Andres?” the boy asked. Getting no answer, he repeated his question.
    The man grunted: “Thirsty?”
    The boy nodded. “The dust,” he said tersely.
    â€œWe will reach it by sundown,” Andres said with his habitual gruffness. “Maybe it will be dry,” he went on, as much to himself as to the boy.
    For all that the man was the lad’s uncle, the boy half feared the surly Andres. Not for some time did he venture another question.
    â€œWhat will we do if it is dry?” he asked at last.
    Andres grinned as he glanced at the youth.
    â€œYou are afraid, eh, Felipe?” he demanded tauntingly. The boy winced, and Andres laughed.
    â€œIf it’s dry, we’ll dig it out!” he exclaimed. “A little mud will not hurt you.”
    Felipe’s throat was parched, and the prospect of having to quench his thirst with a cupful of riled water incensed him.
    â€œWell do you say that we may find it dry,” he muttered petulantly. “We are the very last. If we had taken the short cut over Buckskin we would have had plenty of water.”
    â€œYou bleat now, eh?” Andres remarked hotly. “This morning you talked out of the other side of your mouth. It was to please you that we followed the road. I made no talk about ghosts.”
    â€œNo, but you were glad that I did,” Felipe replied with a show of truculence quite new in him. “You were none too anxious to cross Buckskin.”
    â€œAre you saying that I was afraid?” Andres demanded angrily. “This talk of ghosts is the cackling of children.”
    â€œI did not use the word,” Felipe retorted. “But something is living up there. All of this talk does not spring from nothing. Lope says that he saw him; says he was within a hundred yards of him.”
    â€œI’ve heard his story. Why did he run away? Lope is a coward! I don’t believe he saw any one. If he did, why didn’t he go up and talk to him and find out his business. The Irosabals can’t use the range up there, but a stranger in rags can, eh? Lope says that the man he saw had sheep.”
    â€œOnly fifteen or twenty head.”
    â€œEven so; your grandfather has heard Lope’s tale. Has he done anything about it? Of course not! He is not fooled.”
    â€œNo?” Felipe queried. “Perhaps grandfather sees ghosts up there that we know little about.”
    Andres’s eyes narrowed shrewdly as he glanced at the boy.
    â€œIt would not be well for you to let him hear you say that,” he warned.
    Felipe shook his head slowly. “I am not afraid,” he declared. “He knows what I think. One day I caught him kneeling beside that grave on Buckskin. I asked him why he knelt there, and he snarled at me, but he would not answer—as if an answer were necessary. He has admitted to himself what he will not admit to us.
    â€œWhat has the mad hatred that he has always preached gained for us? What happened in the past, belongs in the past. If