Brand Blotters - Page 161/180

There was one moment of their ride when she stood on the tiptoe of

expectation and showed again the sparkle of eager life. MacQueen had

resaddled after their luncheon, and they were climbing a long sidehill

that looked over a dry valley. With a gesture, the outlaw checked her

horse.

"Look!"

Some quarter of a mile from them two men were riding up a wash that ran

through the valley. The mesquite and the cactus were thick, and it was for

only an occasional moment that they could be seen. Black and the girl were

screened from view by a live oak in front of them, so that there was no

danger of being observed. The outlaw got out his field glasses and watched

the men intently.

Melissy could not contain the question that trembled on her lips: "Do you

know them?"

"I reckon not."

"Perhaps----"

"Well!"

"May I look--please?"

He handed her the glasses. She had to wait for the riders to reappear, but

when they did she gave a little cry.

"It's Mr. Bellamy!"

"Oh, is it?"

He looked at her steadily, ready to crush in her throat any call she might

utter for help. But he soon saw that she had no intention of making her

presence known. Her eyes were glued to the glasses. As long as the men

were in sight she focused her gaze on them ravenously. At last a bend in

the dry river bed hid them from view. She lowered the binoculars with a

sigh.

"Lucky they didn't see us," he said, with his easy, sinister laugh. "Lucky

for them."

She noticed for the first time that he had uncased his rifle and was

holding it across the saddle-tree.

Night slipped silently down from the hills--the soft, cool, velvet night

of the Arizona uplands. The girl drooped in the saddle from sheer

exhaustion. The past few days had been hard ones, and last night she had

lost most of her sleep. She had ridden far on rough trails, had been

subjected to a stress of emotion to which her placid maiden life had been

unused. But she made no complaint. It was part of the creed she had

unconsciously learned from her father to game out whatever had to be

endured.

The outlaw, though he saw her fatigue, would not heed it. She had chosen

to set herself apart from him. Let her ask him to stop and rest, if she

wanted to. It would do her pride good to be humbled. Yet in his heart he

admired her the more, because she asked no favors of him and forbore the

womanish appeal of tears.