The Desert Valley | Page 5

knowing that she was lending aid to tricking her own senses,

yet her heart beat a wee bit faster. She gave her mind to large
considerations: those of infinity, as her eyes were lifted heavenward
and dwelt upon the brightest star; those of life and death, and all of the
mystery of mysteries. She went to sleep struggling with the ancient
problem: 'Do the dead return? Are there, flowing about us, weird,
supernatural influences as potent and intangible as electric currents?' In
her sleep she continued her interesting investigations, but her dreaming
vision explained the evening's problem by showing her the camp-fire
made, the bacon and coffee set thereon, by a very nice young man with
splendid eyes.
She stirred, smiled sleepily, and lay again without moving; after the
fashion of one awakening she clung to the misty frontiers of a fading
dream-country. She breathed deeply, inhaling the freshness of the new
dawn. Then suddenly her eyes flew open, and she sat up with a little
cry; a man who would have fitted well enough into any fancy-free
maiden's dreams was standing close to her side, looking down at her.
Helen's hands flew to her hair.
Plainly--she read that in the first flashing look--he was no less
astounded than she. At the moment he made a picture to fill the eye and
remain in the memory of a girl fresh from an Eastern City. The tall,
rangy form was garbed in the picturesque way of the country; she took
him in from the heels of the black boots with their silver spurs to the
top of his head with its amazingly wide black hat. He stood against a
sky rapidly filling to the warm glow of the morning. His horse, a rarely
perfect creation even in the eyes of one who knew little of fine breeding
in animals, stood just at its master's heels, with ears pricked forward
curiously.
Helen wondered swiftly if he intended to stand there until the sun came
up, just looking at her. Though it was scarcely more than a moment that
he stood thus, in Helen's confusion the time seemed much longer. She
began to grow ill at ease; she felt a quick spurt of irritation. No doubt
she looked a perfect fright, taken all unawares like this, and equally
indisputably he was forming an extremely uncomplimentary opinion of
her. It required less than three seconds for Miss Helen to decide

emphatically that the man was a horrible creature.
But he did not look any such thing. He was healthy and brown and
boyish. He had had a shave and haircut no longer ago than yesterday
and looked neat and clean. His mouth was quite as large as a man's
should be and now was suddenly smiling. At the same instant his hat
came off in his big brown hand and a gleam of downright joyousness
shone in his eyes.
'Impudent beast!' was Helen's quick thought. She had given her mind
last night a great deal less to matters of toilet than to mystic imaginings;
it lay entirely in the field of absurd likelihood that there was a smear of
black across her face.
'My mistake,' grinned the stranger. 'Guess I'll step out while the
stepping's good and the road open. If there's one sure thing a man ought
to be shot for, it's stampeding in on another fellow's honeymoon.
_Adios, señora_.'
'Honeymoon!' gasped Helen. 'The big fool.'
Her father wakened abruptly, sat up, grasping his big revolver in both
hands, and blinked about him; he, too, had had his dreams. In the
night-cap which he had purchased in San Juan, his wide, grave eyes
and sun-blistered face turned up inquiringly; he was worthy of a second
glance as he sat prepared to defend himself and his daughter. The
stranger had just set the toe of his boot into the stirrup; in this posture
he remained, forgetful of his intention to mount, while his mare began
to circle and he had to hop along to keep pace with her, his eyes upon
the startled occupant of the bed beyond Helen's. He had had barely
more than time to note the evident discrepancy in ages which naturally
should have started his mind down a new channel for the explanation of
the true relationship, when the revolver clutched tightly in
unaccustomed fingers went off with an unexpected roar. Dust spouted
up a yard beyond the feet of the man who held it. The horse plunged,
the stranger went up into the saddle like a flash, and the man dropped
his gun to his blanket and muttered in the natural bewilderment of the
moment:

'It--it went off by itself! The most amazing----'
The rider brought his prancing horse back and fought with his facial
muscles for gravity; the light in his