"LIKE SUNSHINE"
Louise drew off her gauntlets and tossed them on the rock. Collie saw
the print of Saunders's fingers on her wrist and forearm. "I ought to
'a' made him kneel down and ask you to let him live!" he said.
"I was afraid--at first. Then I was just angry. It was sickening to see
the marks grow red and swell on his face. I hit him as hard as I could,
but I'm not sorry."
"Sorry?" growled Collie. "He takes your brand with him. He didn't get
the letter. I got to thank you a whole lot for that."
"But how did he know I had it? What did he want with the letter?"
"He saw me give it to you. He's one of the bunch, the Mojave bunch
that's been trailing Red all over the country. When Red disappeared up
in those desert hills, I reckon Saunders must have got hold of a paper
and read about the get-away here at the Moonstone. He just naturally
came over here and got a job to see if he couldn't trace Red."
"You are thinking of joining Mr. Summers at the claim?"
"Yes. The Eastern folks are gone now. I hate to go. But I got to get
busy and make some money. A fellow hasn't much of a show without money
these days."
Louise was silent. She sat gazing across the valley.
Collie approached her hesitatingly. "I just got to say it--after all
that's happened. Seems that I could, now."
Louise paled and flushed. "Oh, Collie!" she cried entreatingly. "We have
been such good friends. Please don't spoil it all!"
"I know I am a fool," he said, "or I was going to be. But please to take
Boyar and go. I'll bring Rally. I was wrong to think you would listen a
little."
But Louise remained sitting upon the rock as though she had not heard
him. Slowly he stepped toward her, his spurs jingling musically. He
caught up one of her gloves and turned it over and over in his fingers
with a kind of clumsy reverence. "It's mighty little--and there's the
shape of your hand in it, just like it bends when you hold the reins. It
seems like a thing almost too good for me to touch, because it means
_you_. I know you won't laugh at me, either."
Louise turned toward him. "No. I understand," she said.
"Here was where Red and I first saw you to know who you was. I used to
hate folks that wore good clothes. I thought they was all the same, you
and all that kind. But, no, it ain't so. You looked back once, when you
were riding away from the jail that time. I was going to look for Red
and not go to work at the Moonstone. I saw you look back. That settled
it. I was proud to think you cared even anything for a tramp. I was
mighty lonesome then. Since, I got to thinking I'd be somebody some day.
But I can see where I stand. I'm a puncher, working for the Moonstone.
You kind of liked me because I had hard luck when I was a kid. But that
made me _love_ you. It ain't wrong, I guess, to love something you can't
ever reach up to. It ain't wrong to keep on loving, only it's awful
lonesome not to ever tell you about it."
"I'm sorry, Collie," said Louise gently.
"Please don't you be sorry. Why, I'm glad! Maybe you don't think it is
the best thing in the world to love a girl. I ain't asking anything but
to just go on loving you. Seems like a man wants the girl he loves to
know it, even if that is just all. You said I love horses. I do. But
loving you started me loving horses. Red said once that I was just
living like what I thought you wanted me to be. Red's wise when he
takes his time to it. But now I'm living the way I think I want to. I
won't ask you to say you care. I guess you don't--that way. But if I
ever get rich--then--"
"Collie, you must not think I am different from any other girl. I'm just
as selfish and stubborn as I can be. I almost feel ashamed to have you
think of me as you do. Let's be sensible about it. You know I like you.
I'm glad you care--for--what you think I am."
"That's it. You are always so kind to a fellow that it makes me feel
mean to speak like I have. You listened--and I am pretty glad of that."
He turned and caught Boyar's bridle. Mounting he caught up Yuma and
Rally. Slowly Collie and the girl rode the trail to the level of the
summit. Slowly they dropped down the descent into Moonstone Cañon. The
letter, Overland Red, Silent Saunders, were forgotten. Side by side
plodded the pony Yuma and Black Boyar. Rally followed. The trees on the
western edge of the cañon threw long, shadowy bars of dusk across the
road. Quail called from the hillside. Other quail answered plaintively
from a distance. Alternate warmth and coolness swam in the air and
touched the riders' faces.
At a bend in the road the ponies crowded together. Collie's hand
accidentally brushed against the girl's and she drew away. He glanced
up quickly. She was gazing straight ahead at the distant peaks. He felt
strangely pleased that she had drawn away from him when his hand touched
hers. Some instinct told him that their old friendship had given place
to something else--something as yet too vague to describe. She was not
angry with him, he knew. Her face was troubled. He gazed at her as they
rode and his heart yearned for her tenderly. Life had suddenly assumed a
tensity that silenced them. The little lizards of the stones scurried
away from either side of the road. One after another, with sprightly
steps, a covey of mountain quail crossed the road before them, leaving
little starlike tracks in the dust. Though homeward bound the ponies
plodded with lowered heads. Moonstone Cañon, always wonderful in its
wild, rugged beauty, seemed as a place of dreams, only real as it echoed
the tread of the ponies. The cañon stream chattered, murmured, quarreled
round a rock-strewn bend, laughed at itself, and passed, singing a
cool-voiced melody.
They rode through a vale of enchantment, only known to Youth and Love.
Her gray eyes were misty and troubled. His eyes were heavy with
unuttered longing. His heart pounded until it almost choked him. He bit
his lips that he might keep silent.
The glint of the slanting sunlight on her hair, the turn of her wrist as
she held the reins, her apparent unconsciousness of all outward things
enthralled him. A spell hung round him like a mist, blinding and
baffling all clearer thought. And because Louise knew his heart, knew
that his homage was not of books, but of his very self, she lingered in
the dream whose thread she might have snapped with a word, a gesture.
Generously the girl blamed herself that she had been the one to cause
him sorrow. She could not give herself to him, be his wife as she knew
he wished her to be. Yet she liked him more than she cared to admit. He
had fought for her once and taken his punishment with a grin. She felt
joy in his homage, and yet she felt humility. In what way, she asked
herself, was she better, cleaner of heart, kinder or cleverer than
Collie? Why should people make distinctions as to birth, or breeding, or
wealth, when character and physical excellence meant so much more?
"Collie!" she whispered, and the touch of her fingers on his arm was as
the touch of fire,--"Collie!"
She drew one of her little gray gauntlets from her belt. "Here," she
said, and the word was a caress.
But he put the proffered token away from him with a trembling hand.
"Don't!" he cried. "I tried not to want you! I did try! This
morning--before I told you--I could have knelt and prayed to your glove.
But now, Louise, Louise Lacharme, I can't. That glove would burn me and
drive me wild to come back to you."
"To come back to you ...?" The words sung themselves through her
consciousness. "Come back to you...." He was going away. "You care so
much?" she asked. There was a new light in her eyes. Her face was almost
colorless. So she had looked when Saunders threatened her. She swayed in
the saddle. Collie's arm was about her. She raised one arm and flung it
round his neck, drawing his face down to her trembling lips. Then she
drew away, her face burning.
Across the end of the cañon a vagrant sunbeam ran like a bridge of faëry
gold. It pelted the gray wall with a million particles of mellow fire.
It flickered, flashed anew, and faded. The ponies drew apart. The colt
Yuma grew restless.
"Good-bye," murmured Louise.
"Like the sunshine," he said, pointing to the cliff.
"It is gone," she whispered, shivering a little as the shadows drew
down.
"It will shine again," he said, smiling.
Without a word she touched Black Boyar with the spurs. A stone clattered
down as he leaped forward, and she was gone.
Collie curbed the colt Yuma, who would have followed. "No, little
hummingbird," he said whimsically. "We aren't so used to heaven that we
can ride out of it quite so fast."
* * * * *
Next morning, with blanket and slicker rolled behind his saddle, he rode
down the Moonstone Cañon Trail. At the foot of the range he turned
eastward, a new world before him. The far hills, hiding the desert
beyond, bulked large and mysterious.
Louise had not been present when he bade good-bye to his Moonstone
friends.