The Glitter of the Unknown

The ranch force had changed very little. Rankin, stouter by a quarter-hundred weight, shaggier of eyebrows and with an accentuated droop in the upper eyelids, and if possible an increased taciturnity, still lived his daytime life mainly on wheels. The old buckboard had finally succumbed, but its counterpart, mud-spattered and weather-bleached, had taken its place. In the kitchen, Ma Graham still presided, her accumulated avoirdupois seeming to have been gathered at the expense of her lord, who in equal ratio thinner and more weazened, danced attendance as of old. Only one of the former cowboys now remained. That one, strange to say, was Grannis, the "man from nowhere," who had apparently taken root at last. Regularly on the last day of each month he drew his pay, and without a word of explanation or comment disappeared upon the back of a cow-pony, to reappear, perhaps in ten hours, perhaps in sixty, dead broke, with a thirst seemingly unappeasable, but quite non-committal concerning his experience, apparently satisfied and ready to take up the dull routine of his life again.

Last of all, Benjamin Blair. Precisely as the boy had given promise, the youth had developed. He was now mature in size, in poise, in action. Long of leg, long of arm, long of face, he stood a half head above Rankin, who had been the tallest man upon the place. Yet he was not awkward. Physically he was of the type, but magnified, to which all cowboys belong; and no one would ever call him awkward or uncouth.