第47章

And the scarlet fired her neck and cheek and temple.That leap of blood seemed to release a riot of emotions.What had been a torment became a torture.She turned Sarchedon homeward, but scarcely had faced that way when she wheeled him again.She rode slowly and she rode swiftly.The former was hateful because it held her back--from what she no longer dared think; the latter was fearful because it hurried her on swiftly, irresistibly to her fate.

Lin Slone had changed his camp and had chosen a pass high up where the great walls had began to break into sections.Here there was intimacy with the sheer cliffs of red and yellow.Wide avenues between the walls opened on all points of the compass, and that one to the north appeared to be a gateway down into the valley of monuments.The monuments trooped down into the valley to spread out and grow isolated in the distance.Slone's camp was in a clump of cedars surrounding a spring.There was grass and white sage where rabbits darted in and out.

Lucy did not approach this camp from that roundabout trail which she had made upon the first occasion of her visiting Slone.He had found an opening in the wall, and by riding this way into the pass Lucy cut off miles.In fact, the camp was not over fifteen miles from Bostil's Ford.It was so close that Lucy was worried lest some horse-tracker should stumble on the trail and follow her up into the pass.

This morning she espied Slone at his outlook on a high rock that had fallen from the great walls.She always looked to see if he was there, and she always saw him.The days she had not come, which were few, he had spent watching for her there.His tasks were not many, and he said he had nothing to do but wait for her.Lucy had a persistent and remorseful, yet sweet memory of Slone at his lonely lookout.Here was a fine, strong, splendid young man who had nothing to do but watch for her--a waste of precious hours!

She waved her hand from afar, and he waved in reply.Then as she reached the cedared part of the pass Slone was no longer visible.She put Sarchedon to a run up the hard, wind-swept sand, and reached the camp before Slone had climbed down from his perch.

Lucy dismounted reluctantly.What would he say about the riding-habit that she wore? She felt very curious to learn, and shyer than ever before, and altogether different.The skirt made her more of a girl, it seemed.

"Hello, Lin! " she called.There was nothing in her usual greeting to betray the state of her mind.

"Good mornin'--Lucy," he replied, very slowly.He was looking at her, she thought, with different eyes.And he seemed changed, too, though he had long been well, and his tall, lithe rider's form, his lean, strong face, and his dark eyes were admirable in her sight.Only this morning, all because she had worn a girl's riding-skirt instead of boy's chaps, everything seemed different.Perhaps her aunt had been right, after all, and now things were natural.

Slone gazed so long at her that Lucy could not keep silent.She laughed.

"How do you like--me--in this?"

"I like you much better," Slone said, bluntly.

"Auntie made this--and she's been trying to get me to ride in it.""It changes you, Lucy....But can you ride as well?""I'm afraid not....What's Wildfire going to think of me?""He'll like you better, too....Lucy, how's the King comin' on?""Lin, I'll tell you, if I wasn't as crazy about Wildfire as you are, I'd say he'll have to kill himself to beat the King," replied Lucy, with gravity.

"Sometimes I doubt, too," said Slone."But I only have to look at Wildfire to get back my nerve....Lucy, that will be the grandest race ever run!""Yes," sighed Lucy.

"What's wrong? Don't you want Wildfire to win?""Yes and no.But I'm going to beat the King, anyway....Bring on your Wildfire!"Lucy unsaddled Sarchedon and turned him loose to graze while Slone went out after Wildfire.And presently it appeared that Lucy might have some little time to wait.Wildfire had lately been trusted to hobbles, which fact made it likely that he had strayed.

Lucy gazed about her at the great looming red walls and out through the avenues to the gray desert beyond.This adventure of hers would soon have an end, for the day of the races was not far distant, and after that it was obvious she would not have occasion to meet Slone.To think of never coming to the pass again gave Lucy a pang.Unconsciously she meant that she would never ride up here again, because Slone would not be here.A wind always blew through the pass, and that was why the sand was so clean and hard.To-day it was a pleasant wind, not hot, nor laden with dust, and somehow musical in the cedars.The blue smoke from Slone's fire curled away and floated out of sight.

It was lonely, with the haunting presence of the broken walls ever manifest.

But the loneliness seemed full of content.She no longer wondered at Slone's desert life.That might be well for a young man, during those years when adventure and daring called him, but she doubted that it would be well for all of a man's life.And only a little of it ought to be known by a woman.She saw how the wildness and loneliness and brooding of such a life would prevent a woman's development.Yet she loved it all and wanted to live near it, so that when the need pressed her she could ride out into the great open stretches and see the dark monuments grow nearer and nearer, till she was under them, in the silent and colored shadows.

Slone returned presently with Wildfire.The stallion shone like a flame in the sunlight.His fear and hatred of Slone showed in the way he obeyed.Slone had mastered him, and must always keep the upper hand of him.It had from the first been a fight between man and beast, and Lucy believed it would always be so.

But Wildfire was a different horse when he saw Lucy.Day by day evidently Slone loved him more and tried harder to win a little of what Wildfire showed at sight of Lucy.Still Slone was proud of Lucy's control over the stallion.

He was just as much heart and soul bent on winning the great race as Lucy was.