as

He certainly didn't want a wife who was fickle as Ann.

His plans and dreams had revolved around her so much and for so long that now he felt as if he had nothing.

He stopped every few minutes and leaned on his shovel as he studied the horizon, but nothing happened, each day dragging out with monotonous calm.

Now he saw that both the man and woman were moving slowly and irregularly, staggering, as if they found it a struggle to remain on their feet.

The boy came on to the porch and sat down, his gaze on Morgan as if half expecting him to shoot and not really caring.

Her eyes were glazed as if she didn't hear or even see him.

She drank greedily, and murmured, `` Thank you '', as he lowered her head.

He had seen a few nester wagons go through the country, the families almost starving to death, but he had never seen any of them on foot and as bad off as these two.

Jones sighed as if relieved.

She stared at him, her eyes wide as she thought about what he had said ; ;

They were a pair of lost, whipped kids, Morgan thought as he went to bed.

The moon had sunk below the black crest of the mountains and the land, seen through eyes that had grown accustomed to the absence of light, looked primeval, as if no man had ever trespassed before.

It looked as Gavin had first seen it years ago, on those nights when he slept alone by his campfire and waked suddenly to the hoot of an owl or the rustle of a blade of grass in the moon's wind -- a savage land, untenanted and brooding, too strong to be broken by the will of men.

The silence oppressed him, made him bend low over the horse's neck as if to hide from a wind that had begun to blow far away and was twisting slowly through the darkness in its slow search.

They had been seen as soon as they left the ranch, picked out of the darkness by the weary though watchful eyes of two men posted a few hundred yards away in the windless shelter of the trees.

They greeted the news angrily, as though they had been cheated of purpose.

About a dozen animals were held inside the stockade, as best Mike could make out in the moonlight.

And using him, Mike McLish, as a sop to her pride.

`` I'm going to walk up to the horses, bold as brass, pretending I'm one of the guerrillas.

`` McLish '', he said as he kicked the horse into motion, `` I'd be a mighty sad man if we never met again ''.

Beyond the stockade rifles began to explode as some of the guerrillas fired at shadows that they imagined were Apaches.

She crouched aside as bullets beat at the portal, chewing into the planks.

Using his hands as a trumpet he shouted, `` Fort up!!