The truth seemed to pour upon him like the waters of an all-engulfing wave--the overwhelming, wonderful truth that was also almost terrible, in what it might mean to them both.
There was one thing only the man could do--ignore this fact that he had discovered and treat her like a man. This he knew instantly. He turned with a man"s indifference to one of his s.e.x and vaulted to Suvy"s back.
"Come on," he said, "if you"re anxious to get under cover."
He could trust himself to say no more. He rode ahead.
Beth did her best to follow, and make no complaint. The broncho, however, was a rapid walker. This she had not realized while Van was striding on in the lead. She fell behind repeatedly, and Van was obliged to halt his horse and wait. She began to be lame. It had been a torture to ride; it was agony to walk.
Van now became strangely urgent. He had never loved her more. His love had taken on a sacredness, out here in the night, with Beth so weary and helpless. More than anything he had ever desired in his life he wished to keep her sacred--spared from such a complication as their night out here alone might engender.
Yet he saw the first little limp when she began to falter. He was watching backward constantly, his whole nature eager to protect her--save her from hurt, from this merciless toil across the desert.
He longed to take her in his arms and carry her thus, securely. He was torn between the wish to hasten her along, for her own greater ease of mind, and the impulse to halt this hardship. He knew not what to do.
They had gone much less than a mile when he brought up his pony at her side.
"Here, Kent," he said, "you walk like a bride-groom going up the aisle.
You"ll have to get up here and ride." He dismounted actively.
Beth could have dropped in her tracks for weariness. She was tired to the marrow of her bones.
"I can"t," she answered. "Perhaps--we"d better camp." A hot flush rushed upward to her very scalp, fortunately, however, unseen.
Van regarded her sternly.
"I"ve changed my mind. I haven"t time to camp out here to-night.
You"ll have to ride."
It seemed to Beth that, had it been to save her life, she could scarcely have climbed to that saddle. To remain on the horse would, she knew, be far beyond her strength. She continued on her feet only by the utmost exertion of her will. Someway since Van had found her in this dreadful place she had lost strength rapidly--perhaps for the leaning on him. With Van"s ultimatum now to confront, she could summon no nerve or resolution.
Her face paled. "You"d better go on, if you have to be at your claim,"
she said, aware that she could offer no argument, no alternative plan to his wish for an onward march. "I"m--not used to riding--much. I can"t ride any more tonight."
He knew she told the truth, knew how gladly she would have continued riding, knew what a plight of collapse she must be approaching to submit to a thought of remaining here till morning. He could not go and leave her here. The thought of it aroused him to something like anger. He realized the necessity of a.s.suming a rougher demeanor.
"d.a.m.n it, Kent," he said, "you"re no less lost than you were before.
You know I can"t go off and leave you. And I want to get ahead."
She only knew she could not ride, come what might.
"You didn"t say so, a little while ago," she ventured, half imploringly. "I"m sorry I"m so nearly dead. If you must go on----"
That cut him to the heart. How could he be a brute?
"I ought to go!" he broke in unguardedly. "I mean I"ve got to think--I"ve got work to do in the morning. Don"t you suppose you could try?"
The moonlight was full on his face. All the laughter she knew so well had disappeared from his eyes. In its place she saw such a look of yearning and worry--such a tenderness of love as no woman ever yet saw and failed to comprehend. She divined in that second that he knew who she was--she felt it, through all her sense of intuition and the fiber of her soul. She understood his insistence on the march, the saving march, straight onward without a halt. She loved him for it. She had loved him with wild intensity, confessed at last to herself, ever since the moment he had appeared in the desert to save her.
If a certain reckless abandon to this love rocked her splendid self-control, it was only because she was so utterly exhausted. Her judgment was sound, unshaken. Nevertheless, despite judgment and all--to go on was out of the question. G.o.d had flung them out here together, she thought, for better or for worse. That Van would be the fine chivalrous gentleman she had felt him to be at the very first moment of their accidental acquaintance, she felt absolutely a.s.sured.
She accepted a certain inevitable fatality in the situation---perhaps the more readily now that she knew he knew, for she seemed so much more secure.
His question remained unanswered while she thought of a thousand things. Could she try to go on?
She shook her head. "What"s the use of my riding--perhaps another mile? You might go on and send a man to guide me in the morning."
What an effort it cost her to make such a harsh suggestion not even Van could know. A terrible fear possessed her that he might really act upon her word. To have him stay was bad enough, but to have him go would be terrible.
"h.e.l.l!" he said, keeping up his acting. "You talk like a woman.
Haven"t I wasted time enough already without sending someone out here to-morrow morning? What makes you think you"re worth it?" He turned his back upon her, hung the stirrup of the saddle on the horn, and began to loosen the cinch.
Like the woman that she was, she enjoyed his roughness, his impudence, and candor. It meant so much, in such a time as this. After a moment she asked him:
"What do you mean to do?"
He hauled off the saddle and dropped it to the ground.
"Make up the berths," he answered. "Here"s your bedding." He tossed the blanket down at her feet. It was warm and moist from Suvy"s body.
He then uncoiled his long la.s.so, secured an end around the pony"s neck, and bade him walk away and roll.
The broncho obeyed willingly, as if he understood. Van took up the saddle, carried it off a bit, and dropped it as before.
Beth still remained there, with the blanket at her feet.
Van addressed her. "Got any matches?"
"No," she said. "I"m afraid----"
"Neither have I," he interrupted. "No fire in the dressing-room.
Good-night. No need to set the alarm clock. I"ll wake you bright and early." Once more he took up his saddle and started off in the ankle-high brush of the plain.
Beth watched him with many misgivings at her heart.
"Where--where are you going?" she called.
"To bed," he called in response. "Want room to kick around, if I get restless."
She understood--but it was hard to bear, to be left so alone as this, in such a place. He went needlessly far, she was sure.
Grateful to him, but alarmed, made weaker again by having thus to make her couch so far from any protection, she continued to stand there, watching him depart. He stooped at last, and his pony halted near him, like a faithful being who must needs keep him always in sight. Even the pony would have been some company for Beth, but when Van stretched himself down upon the earth, with the saddle for a pillow, she felt horribly alone.
There was nothing to do but to make the best of what the fates allowed.
She curled herself down on the chilly sand with the blanket tucked fairly well around her. But she did not sleep. She was far too tired and alarmed.
Half an hour later three coyotes began a fearsome serenade. Beth sat up abruptly, as terrified as if she had been but a child. She endured it for nearly five minutes, hearing it come closer all the while. Then she could bear it no more. She rose to her feet, caught up her blanket, and almost ran towards the pony. More softly then she approached the place where Van lay full length upon the ground. She beheld him in the moonlight, apparently sound asleep.
As closely as she dared she crept, and once more made her bed upon the sand. There, in a child-like sense of security, with her fearless protector near, she listened in a hazy way to the prowling beasts, now cruising away to the south, and so profoundly slept.
Van had heard her come. Into his heart snuggled such a warmth and holy joy as few men are given to feel. He, too, went to sleep, thinking of his nugget on her breast.