e had drawn her hand
away from him. "I remember it was dark when--when--when I can remember.
I reckon they were scared to follow me in so close to settlers. Else
they would have been here."

"You must rest," she observed.

She broke the soft ends of some evergreen, and putting them beneath his
head, went to the horses, loosened the cinches, took off the bridles,
led them to drink, and picketed them to feed. Further still, to leave
nothing undone which she could herself manage, she took the horses'
saddles off to refold the blankets when the time should come, and
meanwhile brought them for him. But he put them away from him. He was
sitting up against a rock, stronger evidently, and asking for cold
water. His head was fire-hot, and the paleness beneath his swarthy skin
had changed to a deepening flush.

"Only five miles!" she said to him, bathing his head.

"Yes. I must hold it steady," he answered, waving his hand at the cliff.

She told him to try and keep it steady until they got home.

"Yes," he repeated. "Only five miles. But it's fightin' to turn around."
Half aware that he was becoming light-headed, he looked from the rock to
her and from her to the rock with dilating eyes.

"We can hold it together," she said. "You must get on your horse." She
took his handkerchief from round his neck, knotting it with her own, and
to make more bandage she ran to the roll of clothes behind his saddle
and tore in halves a clean shirt. A handkerchief fell from it, which
she seized also, and opening, saw her own initials by the hem. Then she
remembered: she saw again their first meeting, the swollen river, the
overset stage, the unknown horseman who carried her to the bank on his
saddle and went away unthanked--her whole first adventure on that
first day of her coming to this new country--and now she knew how her
long-forgotten handkerchief had gone that day. She refolded it gently
and put it back in his bundle, for there was enough bandage without it.
She said not a word to him, and he placed a wrong meaning upon the look
which she gave him as she returned to bind his shoulder.

"It don't hurt so much," he assured her (though extreme pain was
clearing his head for the moment, and he had been able to hold the cliff
from turning). "Yu' must not squander your pity."

"Do not squander your strength," said she.

"Oh, I could put up a pretty good fight now!" But he tottered in showing
her how strong he was, and she told him tha