He could see but a few yards into it, and then it turned and his view ended abruptly on a rainbow wall. That wall had often reminded Cavendish of a rattler, beautiful but dangerous.
"If it uz only straight," he growled, "I c'd see when someone comes this way. But the damn canyon is as fickle as a wench's disposition."
Once more his finger scraped across the two-day beard. Cavendish had survived a good many years there in the West. He had risen above the many forms of sudden death, to know an old age of comparative security. But, like men in that region, where eternal vigilance was the price of safety, his intuition was developed to a high degree. In a poker game he played his hunches. And in life he listened to that little-understood sixth sense.
"Somethin'," he decided, "is goin' on in that Gap, as sure as I'm sittin' here."
As if to echo his words, a distant rumble reached his ears. It came from the Gap. At first he thought it must be another of the frequent storms. He listened, then his face grew harder than before. His jaw set firmly.
"That ain't thunder," he muttered. "That's gunplay!"
His first impulse was to call for some of the men to investigate. Instead, he listened for a moment. His niece, Penelope, could be heard humming a gay tune inside the house. She, at least, had not heard anything unusual. Bryant knew his eyes were failing him of late, and he began to doubt his ears. Perhaps, after all, it might have been thunder. Wouldn't do to start a lot of commotion over nothing at all. Mustn't let the boys know how the old man's slipping.
He struggled to his feet and, half-supporting his weight by gripping the back of a chair, moved to the end of the porch and looked toward the south, where two of his nephews stood idly smoking near a corral. His lips moved with unuttered comments when he saw the men. Scowling, he made his painful way back to the chair.
There was no proof that Bryant Cavendish did not like his relatives. On the other hand, he never had shown affection for them. That wasn't unusual, because he never had cared particularly about anyone.
His bitter outlook on life made him feel that affection and softness went hand in hand. He had lost all respect for his two brothers when they married. The fact that Bryant had outlived them both proved to his own satisfaction, which was all that mattered, that marriage and the problems of the benedict make men die young.