"He is big and dark and handsome. He shoots to kill. He killed my brother.
I hate him. He wants me, and I ran away from him. But he is a coward. I frightened him away. He is afraid of dead men that he has killed."
The young man gave his attention now to the extraordinary story which the girl told as if it were a common occurrence.
"But where are your people, your family and friends? Why do they not send the man away?"
"They"re all back there in the sand," she said with a sad little flicker of a smile and a gesture that told of tragedy. "I said the prayer over them. Mother always wanted it when we died. There wasn"t anybody left but me. I said it, and then I came away. It was cold moonlight, and there were noises. The horse was afraid. But I said it. Do you suppose it will do any good?"
She fastened her eyes upon the young man with her last words as if demanding an answer. The color came up to his cheeks. He felt embarra.s.sed at such a question before her trouble.
"Why, I should think it ought to," he stammered. "Of course it will," he added with more confident comfort.
"Did you ever say the prayer?"
"Why,--I--yes, I believe I have," he answered somewhat uncertainly.
"Did it do any good?" She hung upon his words.
"Why, I--believe--yes, I suppose it did. That is, praying is always a good thing. The fact is, it"s a long time since I"ve tried it. But of course it"s all right."
A curious topic for conversation between a young man and woman on a ride through the wilderness. The man had never thought about prayer for so many minutes consecutively in the whole of his life; at least, not since the days when his nurse tried to teach him "Now I lay me."
"Why don"t you try it about the lady?" asked the girl suddenly.
"Well, the fact is, I never thought of it."
"Don"t you believe it will do any good?"
"Well, I suppose it might."
"Then let"s try it. Let"s get off now, quick, and both say it. Maybe it will help us both. Do you know it all through? Can"t you say it?" This last anxiously, as he hesitated and looked doubtful.
The color came into the man"s face. Somehow this girl put him in a very bad light. He couldn"t shoot; and, if he couldn"t pray, what would she think of him?
"Why, I think I could manage to say it with help," he answered uneasily.
"But what if that man should suddenly appear on the scene?"
"You don"t think the prayer is any good, or you wouldn"t say that." She said it sadly, hopelessly.
"O, why, certainly," he said, "only I thought there might be some better time to try it; but, if you say so, we"ll stop right here." He sprang to the ground, and offered to a.s.sist her; but she was beside him before he could get around his horse"s head.
Down she dropped, and clasped her hands as a little child might have done, and closed her eyes.
"Our Father," she repeated slowly, precisely, as if every word belonged to a charm and must be repeated just right or it would not work. The man"s mumbling words halted after hers. He was reflecting upon the curious tableau they would make to the chance pa.s.ser-by on the desert if there were any pa.s.sers-by. It was strange, this aloneness. There was a wideness here that made praying seem more natural than it would have been at home in the open country.
The prayer, by reason of the unaccustomed lips, went slowly; but, when it was finished, the girl sprang to her saddle again with a businesslike expression.
"I feel better," she said with a winning smile. "Don"t you? Don"t you think He heard?"
"Who heard?"
"Why, "our Father.""
"O, certainly! That is, I"ve always been taught to suppose He did. I haven"t much experimental knowledge in this line, but I dare say it"ll do some good some where. Now do you suppose we could get some of that very sparkling water? I feel exceedingly thirsty."
They spurred their horses, and were soon beside the stream, refreshing themselves.
"Did you ride all night?" asked the girl.
"Pretty much," answered the man. "I stopped once to rest a few minutes; but a sound in the distance stirred me up again, and I was afraid to lose my chance of catching you, lest I should be hopelessly lost. You see, I went out with a party hunting, and I sulked behind. They went off up a steep climb, and I said I"d wander around below till they got back, or perhaps ride back to camp; but, when I tried to find the camp, it wasn"t where I had left it."
"Well, you"ve got to lie down and sleep awhile," said the girl decidedly.
"You can"t keep going like that. It"ll kill you. You lie down, and I"ll watch, and get dinner. I"m going to cook that bird."
He demurred, but in the end she had her way; for he was exceedingly weary, and she saw it. So he let her spread the old coat down for him while he gathered some wood for a fire, and then he lay down and watched her simple preparations for the meal. Before he knew it he was asleep.
When he came to himself, there was a curious blending of dream and reality. He thought his lady was coming to him across the rough plains in an automobile, with gray wings like those of the bird the girl had shot, and his prayer as he knelt in the sand was drawing her, while overhead the air was full of a wild, sweet music from strange birds that mocked and called and trilled. But, when the automobile reached him and stopped, the lady withered into a little, old, dried-up creature of ashes; and the girl of the plains was sitting in her place radiant and beautiful.
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 coa.r.s.ened 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 gra.s.sy 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 quant.i.ties 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 appet.i.te 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.
In answer to his demand who was there came another torrent of profanity.
It was one of his comrades of the day before. He explained that he and two others had come up to pay a visit to the pretty girl. They had had a wager as to who could win her, and they had come to try; but she was not here.
The door was fastened. They had forced it. There was no sign of her about.
The other two had gone down to the place where her brother was buried to see whether she was there. Women were known to be sentimental. She might be that kind. He had agreed to wait here, but he was getting uneasy.
Perhaps, if the other two found her, they might not be fair.