Towards morning they rode more slowly. Their horses were growing jaded.

They talked in lower tones as they looked toward the east. It was as if

they feared they might waken some one too soon. There is something awesome

about the dawning of a new day, and especially when one has been sailing a

sea of silver all night. It is like coming back from an unreal world into

a sad, real one. Each was almost sorry that the night was over. The new

day might hold so much of hardship or relief, so much of trouble or

surprise; and this night had been perfect, a jewel cut to set in memory

with every facet flashing to the light. They did not like to get back to

reality from the converse they had held together. It was an experience for

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each which would never be forgotten.

Once there came the distant sound of shots and shouts. The two shrank

nearer each other, and the man laid his strong hand protectingly on the

mane of the girl's horse; but he did not touch her hand. The lady of his

thoughts had sometimes let him hold her jewelled hand, and smiled with

drooping lashes when he fondled it; and, when she had tired of him, other

admirers might claim the same privilege. But this woman of the

wilderness--he would not even in his thoughts presume to touch her little

brown, firm hand. Somehow she had commanded his honor and respect from the

first minute, even before she shot the bird.

Once a bob-cat shot across their path but a few feet in front of them, and

later a kit-fox ran growling up with ruffled fur; but the girl's quick

shot soon put it to flight, and they passed on through the dawning morning

of the first real Sabbath day the girl had ever known.

"It is Sunday morning at home," said the man gravely as he watched the sun

lift its rosy head from the mist of mountain and valley outspread before

them. "Do you have such an institution out here?"

The girl grew white about the lips. "Awful things happen on Sunday," she

said with a shudder.

He felt a great pity rising in his heart for her, and strove to turn her

thoughts in other directions. Evidently there was a recent sorrow

connected with the Sabbath.

"You are tired," said he, "and the horses are tired. See! We ought to stop

and rest. The daylight has come, and nothing can hurt us. Here is a good

place, and sheltered. We can fasten the horses behind these bushes, and no

one will guess we are here."

She assented, and they dismounted. The man cut an opening into a clump of

thick growth with his knife, and there they fastened the weary horses,

well hidden from sight if any one chanced that way. The girl lay down a

few feet away in a spot almost entirely surrounded by sage-brush which had

reached an unusual height and made a fine hiding-place. Just outside the

entrance of this natural chamber the man lay down on a fragrant bed of

sage-brush. He had gathered enough for the girl first, and spread out the

old coat over it; and she had dropped asleep almost as soon as she lay

down. But, although his own bed of sage-brush was tolerably comfortable,

even to one accustomed all his life to the finest springs and hair

mattress that money could buy, and although the girl had insisted that he

must rest too, for he was weary and there was no need to watch, sleep

would not come to his eyelids.




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