A Voice in the Wilderness | Page 7

her hands suddenly over
her eyes as if to shut out all memory of it.
"More than one kind of beasts!" commented the Boy, briefly. "Well,
you needn't worry about him; he's having his supper and he'll be sound
asleep by the time we get back."
"Oh, have we got to go where he is?" gasped Margaret. "Isn't there
some other place? Is Ashland very far away? That is where I am
going."
"No other place where you could go to-night. Ashland's a good
twenty-five miles from here. But you'll be all right. Mom Wallis 'll look
out for you. She isn't much of a looker, but she has a kind heart. She
pulled me through once when I was just about flickering out. Come on.
You'll be pretty tired. We better be getting back. Mom Wallis 'll make
you comfortable, and then you can get off good and early in the
morning."
Without an apology, and as if it were the common courtesy of the
desert, he stooped and lifted her easily to the saddle of the second horse,
placed the bridle in her hands, then swung the suit-case up on his own
horse and sprang into the saddle.
CHAPTER III
He turned the horses about and took charge of her just as if he were
accustomed to managing stray ladies in the wilderness every day of his
life and understood the situation perfectly; and Margaret settled wearily
into her saddle and looked about her with content.
Suddenly, again, the wide wonder of the night possessed her.
Involuntarily she breathed a soft little exclamation of awe and delight.
Her companion turned to her questioningly:
"Does it always seem so big here--so--limitless?" she asked in
explanation. "It is so far to everywhere it takes one's breath away, and

yet the stars hang close, like a protection. It gives one the feeling of
being alone in the great universe with God. Does it always seem so out
here?"
He looked at her curiously, her pure profile turned up to the wide dome
of luminous blue above. His voice was strangely low and wondering as
he answered, after a moment's silence:
"No, it is not always so," he said. "I have seen it when it was more like
being alone in the great universe with the devil."
There was a tremendous earnestness in his tone that the girl felt meant
more than was on the surface. She turned to look at the fine young face
beside her. In the starlight she could not make out the bitter hardness of
lines that were beginning to be carved about his sensitive mouth. But
there was so much sadness in his voice that her heart went out to him in
pity.
"Oh," she said, gently, "it would be awful that way. Yes, I can
understand. I felt so, a little, while that terrible man was with me." And
she shuddered again at the remembrance.
Again he gave her that curious look. "There are worse things than Pop
Wallis out here," he said, gravely. "But I'll grant you there's some class
to the skies. It's a case of 'Where every prospect pleases and only man
is vile.'" And with the words his tone grew almost flippant. It hurt her
sensitive nature, and without knowing it she half drew away a little
farther from him and murmured, sadly:
"Oh!" as if he had classed himself with the "man" he had been
describing. Instantly he felt her withdrawal and grew grave again, as if
he would atone.
"Wait till you see this sky at the dawn," he said. "It will burn red fire
off there in the east like a hearth in a palace, and all this dome will
glow like a great pink jewel set in gold. If you want a classy sky, there
you have it! Nothing like it in the East!"

There was a strange mingling of culture and roughness in his speech.
The girl could not make him out; yet there had been a palpitating
earnestness in his description that showed he had felt the dawn in his
very soul.
"You are--a--poet, perhaps?" she asked, half shyly. "Or an artist?" she
hazarded.
He laughed roughly and seemed embarrassed. "No, I'm just a--bum! A
sort of roughneck out of a job."
She was silent, watching him against the starlight, a kind of
embarrassment upon her after his last remark. "You--have been here
long?" she asked, at last.
"Three years." He said it almost curtly and turned his head away, as if
there were something in his face he would hide.
She knew there was something unhappy in his life. Unconsciously her
tone took on a sympathetic sound. "And do you get homesick and want
to go back, ever?" she asked.
His tone was fairly savage now. "No!"