FullReads

The afternoon of the sixth day Alfred, Miss Caldwell, and Allen rode along side by side. Alfred was telling a self-effacing story of adventure, and Miss Caldwell was listening carelessly because she had nothing else to do. Allen chaffed lazily when the fancy took him.

“I happened to have a limb broken at the time,” Alfred was observing, parenthetically, in his soft tones, “and so—-“

“What kind of a limb?” asked the young Easterner, with direct brutality. He glanced with a half-humourous aside at the girl, to whom the little man had been mainly addressing himself.

Alfred hesitated, blushed, lost the thread of his tale, and finally in great confusion reined back his horse by the harsh Spanish bit. He fell to the rear of the little wagon-train, where he hung his head, and went hot and cold by turns in thinking of such an indiscretion before a lady.

The young Easterner spurred up on the right of the girl’s mount.

“He’s the queerest little fellow I ever saw!” he observed, with a laugh. “Sorry to spoil his story. Was it a good one?”

“It might have been if you hadn’t spoiled it,” answered the girl, flicking her horse’s ears mischievously. The animal danced. “What did you do it for?”

“Oh, just to see him squirm. He’ll think about that all the rest of the afternoon, and will hardly dare look you in the face next time you meet.”

“I know. Isn’t he funny? The other morning he came around the corner of the wagon and caught me with my hair down. I wish you could have seen him!”

She laughed gayly at the memory.

“Let’s get ahead of the dust,” she suggested.

They drew aside to the firm turf of the prairie and put their horses to a slow lope. Once well ahead of the canvas-covered schooners they slowed down to a walk again.

“Alfred says we’ll see them to-morrow,” said the girl.

“See what?”

“Why, the Hills! They’ll show like a dark streak, down past that butte there–what’s its name?”

“Porcupine Tail.”

“Oh, yes. And after that it’s only three days. Are you glad?”

“Are you?”

“Yes, I believe I am. This life is fun at first, but there’s a certain monotony in making your toilet where you have to duck your head because you haven’t room to raise your hands, and this barrelled water palls after a time. I think I’ll be glad to see a house again. People like camping about so long—-“

“It hasn’t gone back on me yet.”

“Well, you’re a man and can do things.”

“Can’t you do things?”

“You know I can’t. What do you suppose they’d say if I were to ride out just that way for two miles? They’d have a fit.”

“Who’d have a fit? Nobody but Alfred, and I didn’t know you’d gotten afraid of him yet! I say, just let’s! We’ll have a race, and then come right back.” The young man looked boyishly eager.

“It would be nice,” she mused. They gazed into each other’s eyes like a pair of children, and laughed.

“Why shouldn’t we?” urged the young man. “I’m dead sick of staying in the moving circle of these confounded wagons. What’s the sense of it all, anyway?”

“Why, Indians, I suppose,” said the girl, doubtfully.

“Indians!” he replied, with contempt. “Indians! We haven’t seen a sign of one since we left Pierre. I don’t believe there’s one in the whole blasted country. Besides, you know what Alfred said at our last camp?”

“What did Alfred say?”

“Alfred said he hadn’t seen even a teepee-trail, and that they must be all up hunting buffalo. Besides that, you don’t imagine for a moment that your father would take you all this way to Deadwood just for a lark, if there was the slightest danger, do you?”

“I don’t know; I made him.”

She looked out over the long sweeping descent to which they were coming, and the long sweeping ascent that lay beyond. The breeze and the sun played with the prairie grasses, the breeze riffling them over, and the sun silvering their under surfaces thus exposed. It was strangely peaceful, and one almost expected to hear the hum of bees as in a New England orchard. In it all was no sign of life.