The silence was in painful contrast to the high spirits in which they had ridden into town. Then, they had found so much to talk about, so much to anticipate--and it had all turned out to be so different, so far removed from anything they had dreamed. Each shrank from being the first to broach the subject of their humiliating retreat.
The moon came up after a while, full and mellow, and the night air cooled Kate's flaming cheeks. The familiar stars, too, soothed her like the presence of old friends, but, more than anything, the accustomed motion of her horse, as it took its running walk, helped to restore her mental poise.
At the top of a hill both drew rein automatically. Walking down steep descents to save their horses and themselves was an understood thing between them. At the bottom they still trudged on, leading their horses and exchanging only an occasional word upon some subject far removed from their real thoughts. It was Kate who finally said with seeming irrelevance: "Uncle Joe brought home two collie puppies once--fat, roly-poly little things that didn't do anything but play and eat, and they were--oh, so innocent! They were into everything, and always under foot, afraid of nothing or nobody, because they never had been hurt.
"One night a storm came up--a cold rain that was almost snow. They ran into my tent and settled themselves on my pillow all shivering and wet. In squirming around to make a nest for themselves they pulled my hair. It made me cross. I was half asleep and I slapped them.
"They paid no attention to it at first--they couldn't believe I meant it, so they kept on trying to cuddle up to me to get warm. I slapped them harder. They whimpered, but still they couldn't realize that I meant to hurt them. Finally, I struck them--hard--again and again--until they howled with pain. They understood finally that they were not wanted--and they went crying and whimpering out into the rain.
"It awakened me, thinking what I had done, how they had come to me so innocent--taking kindness as a matter of course because they never had known anything else, and I had been the first to hurt them. I was the first to spoil their confidence in others--and themselves. I couldn't sleep for thinking of it, and finally I got up, and, to punish myself, went out barefooted into the storm and brought them back. They forgave me and soon settled down, but they never were quite the same, for they had learned what pain was and what it meant to be afraid.