"Don"t be afraid, little girl. I"ll see no harm comes to you," the man said to her with a quick, fierce tenderness.
The comfort of his support was unspeakable. It stole into her heart like water to the roots of thirsty plants. To feel her head against his shoulder, to know he held her tight, meant safety and life. He had told her not to be afraid, and she was so no longer.
"You shot at me," she murmured in reproach.
"I didn"t know. We thought it was Bellamy"s herd. But it"s true, G.o.d forgive me! I did."
There was in his voice the warm throb of emotion, and in his eyes something she had never seen before in those of any human being. Like stars they were, swimming in light, glowing with the exultation of the triumph he was living. She was a splendid young animal, untaught of life, generous, pa.s.sionate, tempestuous, and as her pliant, supple body lay against his some s.e.x instinct old as creation stirred potently within her.
She had found her mate. It came to her as innocently as the same impulse comes to the doe when the spring freshets are seeking the river, and as innocently her lips met his in their first kiss of surrender. Something irradiated her, softened her, warmed her. Was it love? She did not know, but as yet she was still happy in the glow of it.
Slowly, hand in hand, they worked back to the trail and down it to the bottom of the canon. The soft velvet night enwrapped them. It shut them from the world and left them one to one. From the meeting palms strange electric currents tingled through the girl and flushed her to an ecstasy of emotion.
A camp fire was already burning cheerfully when they reached the base of the descent. A man came forward to meet them. He glanced curiously at the girl after she came within the circle of light. Her eyes were shining as from some inner glow, and she was warm with a soft color that vitalized her beauty. Then his gaze pa.s.sed to take in with narrowed lids her companion.
"I see you found her," he said dryly.
"Yes, I found her, Bob."
He answered the spirit of Farnum"s words rather than the letter of them, nor could he keep out of his bearing and his handsome face the exultation that betrayed success.
"H"mp!" Farnum turned from him and addressed the girl: "I suppose Norris has explained our mistake and eaten crow for all of us, Miss Lee. I don"t see how come we to make such a blame" fool mistake. It was gitting dark, and we took your skirt for a greaser"s blanket. It"s ce"tainly on us."
"Yes, he has explained."
"Well, there won"t any amount of explaining square the thing. We might "a"
done you a terrible injury, Miss Lee. It was gilt-edged luck for us that you thought to jump on that rock and holler."
"I was thinking of the sheep," she said.
"Well, you saved them, and I"m right glad of it. We ain"t got any use for Mary"s little trotter, but your father"s square about his. He keeps them herded up on his own range. We may not like it, but we ce"tainly aren"t going to the length of attackin" his herd." Farnum"s gaze took in her slender girlishness, and he voiced the question in his mind. "How in time do you happen to be sheep-herding all by your lone a thousand miles from nowhere, Miss Lee?"
She explained the circ.u.mstances after she had moved forward to warm herself by the fire. For already night was bringing a chill breeze with it. The man cooking the coffee looked up and nodded pleasantly, continuing his work. Norris dragged up a couple of saddle blankets and spread them on the ground for her to sit upon.
"You don"t have to do a thing but boss this outfit," he told her with his gay smile. "You"re queen of the range to-night, and we"re your herders or your punchers, whichever you want to call us. To-morrow morning two of us are going to drive these sheep on to the trading post for you, and the other one is going to see you safe back home. It"s all arranged."
They were as good as his word. She could not move from her place to help herself. It was their pleasure to wait upon her as if she had really been a queen and they her subjects. Melissy was very tired, but she enjoyed their deference greatly. She was still young enough to find delight in the fact that three young and more or less good-looking men were vying with each other to antic.i.p.ate her needs.
Like them, she ate and drank ravenously of the sandwiches and the strong coffee, though before the meal was over she found herself nodding drowsily. The tactful courtesy of these rough fellows was perfect. They got the best they had for her of their blankets, dragged a pinon root to feed the glowing coals, and with cheerful farewells of "_Buenos Noches_"
retired around a bend in the canon and lit another fire for themselves.
The girl snuggled down into the warmth of the blankets and stretched her weary limbs in delicious rest. She did not mean to go to sleep for a long time. She had much to think about. So she looked up the black sheer canon walls to the deep blue, starry sky above, and relived her day in memory.
A strange excitement tingled through her, born of shame and shyness and fear, and of something else she did not understand, something which had lain banked in her nature like a fire since childhood and now threw forth its first flame of heat. What did it mean, that pa.s.sionate fierceness with which her lips had clung to his? She liked him, of course, but surely liking would not explain the pulse that her first kiss had sent leaping through her blood like wine. Did she love him?
Then why did she distrust him? Why was there fear in her sober second thought of him? Had she done wrong? For the moment all her maiden defenses had been wiped out and he had ridden roughshod over her reserves. But somewhere in her a bell of warning was ringing. The poignant sting of s.e.x appeal had come home to her for the first time. Wherefore in this frank child of the wilderness had been born a shy shame, a vague trembling for herself that marked a change. At sunrise she had been still treading gayly the primrose path of childhood; at sunset she had entered upon her heritage of womanhood.
The sun had climbed high and was peering down the walls of the gulch when she awoke. She did not at once realize where she was, but came presently to a blinking consciousness of her surroundings. The rock wall on one side was still shadowed, while the painted side of the other was warm with the light which poured upon it. The Gothic spires, the Moorish domes, the weird and mysterious caves, which last night had given more than a touch of awe to her majestic bedchamber, now looked a good deal less like the ruins of mediaeval castles and the homes of elfin sprites and gnomes.
"_Buenos dios, muchacha,_" a voice called cheerfully to her.
She did not need to turn to know to whom it belonged. Among a thousand she would have recognized its tone of vibrant warmth.
"_Buenos,_" she answered, and, rising hurriedly, she fled to rearrange her hair and dress.
It was nearly a quarter of an hour later that she reappeared, her thick coils of ebon-hued tresses shining in the sun, her skirt smoothed to her satisfaction, and the effects of feminine touches otherwise visible upon her fresh, cool person.
"Breakfast is served," Norris sang out.
"Dinner would be nearer it," she laughed. "Why in the world didn"t you boys waken me? What time is it, anyhow?"
"It"s not very late--a little past noon maybe. You were all tired out with your tramp yesterday. I didn"t see why you shouldn"t have your sleep out."
He was pouring a cup of black coffee for her from the smoky pot, and she looked around expectantly for the others. Simultaneously she remembered that she had not heard the bleating of the sheep.
"Where are the others--Mr. Farnum and Sam? And have you the sheep all gagged?" she laughed.
He gave her that odd look of smoldering eyes behind half-shut lids.
"The boys have gone on to finish the drive for you. They started before sun-up this morning. I"m elected to see you back home safely."
"But----"
Her protest died unspoken. She could not very well frame it in words, and before his bold, possessive eyes the girl"s long, dark lashes wavered to the cheeks into which the hot blood was beating. Nevertheless, the feeling existed that she wished one of the others had stayed instead of him. It was born, no doubt, partly of the wave of shyness running through her, but partly too of instinctive maidenly resistance to something in his look, in the a.s.surance of his manner, that seemed to claim too much. Last night he had taken her by storm and at advantage. Something of shame stirred in her that he had found her so easy a conquest, something too of a new vague fear of herself. She resented the fact that he could so move her, even though she still felt the charm of his personal presence. She meant to hold herself in abeyance, to make sure of herself and of him before she went further.
But the cowpuncher had no intention of letting her regain so fully control of her emotions. Experience of more than one young woman had taught him that scruples were likely to a.s.sert themselves after reflection, and he purposed giving her no time for that to-day.
He did not count in vain upon the intimacy of companionship forced upon them by the circ.u.mstances, nor upon the skill with which he knew how to make the most of his manifold attractions. His role was that of the comrade, gay with good spirits and warm with friendliness, solicitous of her needs, but not oppressively so. If her glimpse of him at breakfast had given the girl a vague alarm, she laughed her fears away later before his open good humor.
There had been a time when he had been a part of that big world "back in the States," peopled so generously by her unfettered imagination. He knew how to talk, and entertainingly, of books and people, of events and places he had known. She had not knowledge enough of life to doubt his stories, nor did she resent it that he spoke of this her native section with the slighting manner of one who patronized it with his presence.
Though she loved pa.s.sionately her Arizona, she guessed its crudeness, and her fancy magnified the wonders of that southern civilization from which it was so far cut off.
Farnum had left his horse for the girl, and after breakfast the cowpuncher saddled the broncos and brought them up. Melissy had washed the dishes, filled his canteen, and packed the saddle bags. Soon they were off, climbing slowly the trail that led up the canon wall. She saw the carca.s.s of a dead sheep lying on the rocks half way down the cliff, and had spoken of it before she could stop herself.
"What is that? Isn"t it----?"
"Looks to me like a boulder," lied her escort unblushingly. There was no use, he judged, in recalling unpleasant memories.
Nor did she long remember. The dry, exhilarating sunshine and the sting of gentle, wide-swept breezes, the pleasure of swift motion and the ring of that exultingly boyish voice beside her, combined to call the youth in her to rejoice. Firm in the saddle she rode, as graceful a picture of piquant girlhood as could be conceived, thrilling to the silent voices of the desert. They traveled in a sunlit sea of s.p.a.ce, under a sky of blue, in which tenuous cloud lakes floated. Once they came on a small bunch of hill cattle which went flying like deer into the covert of a draw. A rattlesnake above a prairie dog"s hole slid into the mesquit. A swift watched them from the top of a smooth rock, motionless so long as they could see. She loved it all, this immense, deserted world of s.p.a.ce filled with its mult.i.tudinous dwellers.
They unsaddled at Dead Cow Creek, hobbled the ponies, and ate supper.
Norris seemed in no hurry to resaddle. He lay stretched carelessly at full length, his eyes upon her with veiled admiration. She sat upright, her gaze on the sunset with its splashes of topaz and crimson and saffron, watching the tints soften and mellow as dusk fell. Every minute now brought its swift quota of changing beauty. A violet haze enveloped the purple mountains, and in the crotch of the hills swam a lake of indigo.
The raw, untempered glare of the sun was giving place to a limitless pour of silvery moonlight.
Her eyes were full of the soft loveliness of the hour when she turned them upon her companion. He answered promptly her unspoken question.
"You bet it is! A night for the G.o.ds--or for lovers."
He said it in a murmur, his eyes full on hers, and his look wrenched her from her mood. The mask of comradeship was gone. He looked at her hungrily, as might a lover to whom all spiritual heights were denied.