"She does not want you! And yet you ran away from her?"
"That's exactly it," he said. "You see, I wanted her!"
"Oh!" She gave a sharp, quick gasp of intelligence, and was silent. After
a full minute she rode quite close to his horse, and laid her small brown
hand on the animal's mane.
"I am sorry," she said simply.
"Thank you," he answered. "I'm sure I don't know why I told you. I never
told any one before."
There was a long silence between them. The man seemed to have forgotten
her as he rode with his eyes upon his horse's neck, and his thoughts
apparently far away.
At last the girl said softly, as if she were rendering return for the
confidence given her, "I ran away from a man."
The man lifted his eyes courteously, questioningly, and waited.
"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 embarrassed
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."