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Page 18
He opened his eyes, and saw the rude little dinner set, and smelt the
delicious odor of the roasted bird. The girl was standing on the other
side of the fire, gravely whistling a most extraordinary song, like unto
all the birds of the air at once.
She had made a little cake out of the corn-meal, and they feasted royally.
"I caught two fishes in the brook. We'll take them along for supper," she
said as they packed the things again for starting. He tried to get her to
take a rest also, and let him watch; but she insisted that they must go
on, and promised to rest just before dark. "For we must travel hard at
night, you know," she added fearfully.
He questioned her more about the man who might be pursuing, and came to
understand her fears.
"The scoundrel!" he muttered, looking at the delicate features and clear,
lovely profile of the girl. He felt a strong desire to throttle the evil
man.
He asked a good many questions about her life, and was filled with wonder
over the flower-like girl who seemed to have blossomed in the wilderness
with no hand to cultivate her save a lazy, clever, drunken father, and a
kind but ignorant mother. How could she have escaped being coarsened amid
such surroundings. How was it, with such brothers as she had, that she had
come forth as lovely and unhurt as she seemed? He somehow began to feel a
great anxiety for her lonely future and a desire to put her in the way of
protection. But at present they were still in the wilderness; and he began
to be glad that he was here too, and might have the privilege of
protecting her now, if there should be need.
As it grew toward evening, they came upon a little grassy spot in a coulee
where the horses might rest and eat. Here they stopped, and the girl threw
herself under a shelter of trees, with the old coat for a pillow, and
rested, while the man paced up and down at a distance, gathering wood for
a fire, and watching the horizon. As night came on, the city-bred man
longed for shelter. He was by no means a coward where known quantities
were concerned, but to face wild animals and drunken brigands in a
strange, wild plain with no help near was anything but an enlivening
prospect. He could not understand why they had not come upon some human
habitation by this time. He had never realized how vast this country was
before. When he came westward on the train he did not remember to have
traversed such long stretches of country without a sign of civilization,
though of course a train went so much faster than a horse that he had no
adequate means of judging. Then, besides, they were on no trail now, and
had probably gone in a most roundabout way to anywhere. In reality they
had twice come within five miles of little homesteads, tucked away beside
a stream in a fertile spot; but they had not known it. A mile further to
the right at one spot would have put them on the trail and made their way
easier and shorter, but that they could not know.
The girl did not rest long. She seemed to feel her pursuit more as the
darkness crept on, and kept anxiously looking for the moon.
"We must go toward the moon," she said as she watched the bright spot
coming in the east.
They ate their supper of fish and corn-bread with the appetite that grows
on horseback, and by the time they had started on their way again the moon
spread a path of silver before them, and they went forward feeling as if
they had known each other a long time. For a while their fears and hopes
were blended in one.
Meantime, as the sun sank and the moon rose, a traveller rode up the steep
ascent to the little lonely cabin which the girl had left. He was handsome
and dark and strong, with a scarlet kerchief knotted at his throat; and he
rode slowly, cautiously, looking furtively about and ahead of him. He was
doubly armed, and his pistols gleamed in the moonlight, while an ugly
knife nestled keenly in a secret sheath.
He was wicked, for the look upon his face was not good to see; and he was
a coward, for he started at the flutter of a night-bird hurrying late to
its home in a rock by the wayside. The mist rising from the valley in
wreaths of silver gauze startled him again as he rounded the trail to the
cabin, and for an instant he stopped and drew his dagger, thinking the
ghost he feared was walking thus early. A draught from the bottle he
carried in his pocket steadied his nerves, and he went on, but stopped
again in front of the cabin; for there stood another horse, and there in
the doorway stood a figure in the darkness! His curses rang through the
still air and smote the moonlight. His pistol flashed forth a volley of
fire to second him.
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