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Page 7
She patted his neck and soothed him incoherently, as she buried her face
in his mane for a moment, and let the first tears that had dimmed her eyes
since the blow had fallen come smarting their way out. Then, leaving the
horse to stand curiously watching her, she went down and stood at the head
of the new-heaped mound. She tried to kneel, but a shudder passed through
her. It was as if she were descending into the place of the dead herself;
so she stood up and raised her eyes to the wide white night and the moon
riding so high and far away.
"Our Father," she said in a voice that sounded miles away to herself. Was
there any Father, and could He hear her? And did He care? "Which art in
heaven--" but heaven was so far away and looked so cruelly serene to her
in her desolateness and danger! "hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come--"
whatever that might mean. "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."
It was a long prayer to pray, alone with the pale moon-rain and the
graves, and a distant wolf, but it was her mother's wish. Her will being
done here over the dead--was that anything like the will of the Father
being done in heaven? Her untrained thoughts hovered on the verge of
great questions, and then slipped back into her pathetic self and its
fear, while her tongue hurried on through the words of the prayer.
Once the horse stirred and breathed a soft protest. He could not
understand why they were stopping so long in this desolate place, for
nothing apparently. He had looked and looked at the shapeless mound before
which the girl was standing; but he saw no sign of his lost master, and
his instincts warned him that there were wild animals about. Anyhow, this
was no place for a horse and a maid to stop in the night.
A few loose stones rattled from the horse's motion. The girl started, and
looked hastily about, listening for a possible pursuer; but everywhere in
the white sea of moonlight there was empty, desolate space. On to the
"Amen" she finished then, and with one last look at the lonely graves she
turned to the horse. Now they might go, for the duty was done, and there
was no time to be lost.
Somewhere over toward the east across that untravelled wilderness of white
light was the trail that started to the great world from the little cabin
she had left. She dared not go back to the cabin to take it, lest she find
herself already followed. She did not know the way across this lonely
plain, and neither did the horse. In fact, there was no way, for it was
all one arid plain so situated that human traveller seldom came near it,
so large and so barren that one might wander for hours and gain no goal,
so dry that nothing would grow.
With another glance back on the way she had come, the girl mounted the
horse and urged him down into the valley. He stepped cautiously into the
sandy plain, as if he were going into a river and must try its depth. He
did not like the going here, but he plodded on with his burdens. The girl
was light; he did not mind her weight; but he felt this place uncanny, and
now and then would start on a little spurt of haste, to get into a better
way. He liked the high mountain trails, where he could step firmly and
hear the twigs crackle under his feet, not this muffled, velvet way where
one made so little progress and had to work so hard.
The girl's heart sank as they went on, for the sand seemed deep and
drifted in places. She felt she was losing time. The way ahead looked
endless, as if they were but treading sand behind them which only returned
in front to be trodden over again. It was to her like the valley of the
dead, and she longed to get out of it. A great fear lest the moon should
go down and leave her in this low valley alone in the dark took hold upon
her. She felt she must get away, up higher. She turned the horse a little
more to the right, and he paused, and seemed to survey the new direction
and to like it. He stepped up more briskly, with a courage that could come
only from an intelligent hope for better things. And at last they were
rewarded by finding the sand shallower, and now and then a bit of rock
cropping out for a firmer footing.
The young rider dismounted, and untied the burlap from the horse's feet.
He seemed to understand, and to thank her as he nosed about her neck. He
thought, perhaps, that their mission was over and they were going to
strike out for home now.
The ground rose steadily before them now, and at times grew quite steep;
but the horse was fresh as yet, and clambered upward with good heart; and
the rider was used to rough places, and felt no discomfort from her
position. The fear of being followed had succeeded to the fear of being
lost, for the time being; and instead of straining her ears on the track
behind she was straining her eyes to the wilderness before. The growth of
sage-brush was dense now, and trees were ahead.
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