The Estray - Chapter 1 A Wild Cat

The Lazy-Y ranch-house, a one-storied building of logs, was built
about three sides of a paved court. In the middle of this court stood
a well with a high rustic top, and about this well on a certain
brilliant July night, a tall man was strolling with his hands behind
his back. It was a night of full moon, sailing high, which poured
whiteness into the court, making its cobbles embedded in the earth
look like milky bubbles and drawing clear-cut shadows of the well-top
and the gables and chimneys of the house. The man slowly circled the
court beginning close to the walls and narrowing till he made a loop
about the well, and then, reversing, worked in widening orbits as far
as the walls again. His wife, looking out at him through one of the
windows, thought that, in the moonlight, followed by his own squat,
active shadow, he looked like a huge spider weaving a web. This effect
was heightened by the fact that he never looked up. He was deep in
some plan to which it was impossible for her not to believe that the
curious pattern of his walk bore some relation.

From the northern wing of the ranch-house, strongly lighted, came a
tumult of sound; music, thumping feet, a man's voice chanting
couplets: "Oh, you walk right through and you turn around
and swing the girl that finds you,
And you come right back by the same old track
and turn the girl behind you."