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Page 15
And what sort of a girl was she? Perhaps she was escaping from justice.
She ran from him yesterday, and apparently stopped only when utterly
exhausted. She seemed startled and anxious when the antelopes came into
sight. There was no knowing whether her company meant safety, after all.
Yet his interest was so thoroughly aroused in her that he was willing to
risk it.
Of course he might go more slowly and gradually, let her get ahead, and he
slip out of sight. It was not likely he had wandered so many miles away
from human habitation but that he would reach one sometime; and, now that
he was re-enforced by food, perhaps it would be the part of wisdom to part
with this strange maiden. As he thought, he unconsciously slackened his
horse's pace. The girl was a rod or more ahead, and just vanishing behind
a clump of sage-brush. She vanished, and he stopped for an instant, and
looked about him on the desolation; and a great loneliness settled upon
him like a frenzy. He was glad to see the girl riding back toward him
with a smile of good fellowship on her face.
"What's the matter?" she called. "Come on! There's water in the valley."
The sound of water was good; and life seemed suddenly good for no reason
whatever but that the morning was bright, and the sky was wide, and there
was water in the valley. He rode forward, keeping close beside her now,
and in a moment there gleamed below in the hot sunshine the shining of a
sparkling stream.
"You seem to be running away from some one," he explained. "I thought you
wanted to get rid of me, and I would give you a chance."
She looked at him surprised.
"I am running away," she said, "but not from you."
"From whom, then, may I ask? It might be convenient to know, if we are to
travel in the same company."
She looked at him keenly.
"Who are you, and where do you belong?"
CHAPTER IV
THE TWO FUGITIVES
"I'm not anybody in particular," he answered, "and I'm not just sure where
I belong. I live in Pennsylvania, but I didn't seem to belong there
exactly, at least not just now, and so I came out here to see if I
belonged anywhere else. I concluded yesterday that I didn't. At least, not
until I came in sight of you. But I suspect I am running away myself. In
fact, that is just what I am doing, running away from a woman!"
He looked at her with his honest hazel eyes, and she liked him. She felt
he was telling her the truth, but it seemed to be a truth he was just
finding out for himself as he talked.
"Why do you run away from a woman? How could a woman hurt you? Can she
shoot?"
He flashed her a look of amusement and pain mingled.
"She uses other weapons," he said. "Her words are darts, and her looks are
swords."
"What a queer woman! Does she ride well?"
"Yes, in an automobile!"
"What is that?" She asked the question shyly as if she feared he might
laugh again; and he looked down, and perceived that he was talking far
above her. In fact, he was talking to himself more than to the girl.
There was a bitter pleasure in speaking of his lost lady to this wild
creature who almost seemed of another kind, more like an intelligent bird
or flower.
"An automobile is a carriage that moves about without horses," he answered
her gravely. "It moves by machinery."
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