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The Idyll of Red Gulch
by
“I will take the boy. Send him to me to-night. ”
The happy mother raised the hem of Miss Mary’s skirts to her lips. She would have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not. She rose to her feet.
“Does—this man—know of your intention?” asked Miss Mary, suddenly.
“No, nor cares. He has never even seen the child to know it. ”
“Go to him at once—to-night—now! Tell him what you have done. Tell him I have taken his child, and tell him—he must never see—see—the child again. Wherever it may be, he must not come; wherever I may take it, he must not follow! There, go now, please—I’m weary, and—have much yet to do!”
They walked together to the door. On the threshold the woman turned.
“Good night. ”
She would have fallen at Miss Mary’s feet. But at the same moment the young girl reached out her arms, caught the sinful woman to her own pure breast for one brief moment, and then closed and locked the door.
It was with a sudden sense of great responsibility that Profane Bill took the reins of the Slumgullion Stage the next morning, for the schoolmistress was one of his passengers. As he entered the high-road, in obedience to a pleasant voice from the “inside”, he suddenly reined up his horses and respectfully waited, as “Tommy” hopped out at the command of Miss Mary.
“Not that bush, Tommy—the next. ”
Tommy whipped out his new pocket-knife, and, cutting a branch from a tall azalea-bush, returned with it to Miss Mary.
“All right now?”
“All right. ”
And the stage-door closed on the Idyll of Red Gulch.