The Night Horseman

as low and controlled and musical and it did not fit with the nasal harshness of the cattlemen. When she began to speak it was like the beginning of a song. He turned now and fou

me for mounting. Yet when he approached gingerly he was received with flattene

oked he could see no trace of it in her face. He

foot in the stirrup, he dragged himself gingerly up to the saddle. The mare stood

"that the animal is of unusual i

aid the girl gravel

k the jar of every step, the sure sign of the good saddle-horse; but the horse has never been saddled whose trot is really a smooth pace. The hat of Doctor

ventured to his compa

rne!" s

stopped as a ball stops when it meets a stout wall; the doctor sprawled along h

in the nature of this brut

He cast a sidelong glance but

d upon w

?" she s

oath. On the contrary, I was merely remarking that the trot i

was, after all, a certain kinship between this woman of the mountain

suggested, "and I think

rly flinging the doctor over the back of the saddle, but by the grace of God he clutched the pommel in tim

e doctor, "has never bee

iolently back and forth. She was the calm crest, swaying slightly and graciously with a motion as

o it in a moment,

ed by the swift western wind. In a little time a certain pride went beating through the veins of the doctor, the air blew more deeply into his lungs, there was a different tang to the wind and a different feel to the sun-a peculiar richness of yellow warmth. And the small head of

khead, broken here and there by the projecting boulders which flashed in the sun. So a great battlefield might appear, pockmarked with shell-holes, and all the scars of war freshly cut upon its face. And in truth the mountain desert was like an arena ready to stage a conflict-a titanic arena with space for earth-giants to struggle-and there in the distance were the spectator mountains. High, lean-flanked mountains they were, not clad in forests, but rather bristling with a stubby growth of the few trees which might endure in precarious soil and bitter weather, but n

e her strange, there was about her a natural dignity like the mystery of distance. There was a rhythm, too, about that line of peaks against the sky, and the girl had caught it; he watched her sway with the gallop of her horse and felt that though she was so close at hand she

theses, doubts, and polysyllabic speech into the world-of what? The spirit? The doctor did not know. He only felt that he was about to step into the unknown, and it held for

storied house larger than any the doctor had seen in the mountain-desert; and outside the trees lay long sheds, a great barn, and a wide-spread wilderness of corrals. It struck the doctor with its apparently limitless capacity for housing man and beast. Coming in contrast with the rock-s

the sickness of your father-the background behind

hen, as the gloom fell more thickly around them every moment, she swerved her horse over

h. If it were that I should not worry so much; I'd attribute it to disease. But every day something of vitality goes from him. He is fading almost from hour to hour, as slowly as the hour hand of

tended by i

d seems to have no care

he things which formerly a

ndition of the cattle, or for profit or loss in the s

nution of the facul

than he has ever been. He seems to hear

ctor f

d age," he remarked, "but this is unusual. This-er-inner acuten

lence for acquiescence, but then through the dimness he was arres

h. "Yes, there is one thing in

r nodded

e said. "

eeply troubled; one hand gripped the horn of her saddle strongly; her lips had parted; she was like one who endures inescap

it is hard to speak-it

madame, though perhaps apparently remote from the imme

which will never come. He has missed something from his life which will never

, and he automatically adjusted his glasses close

she exclaimed hurried

eft Elkhead I heard a hint of some remarkable story con

addressed to her horse, and the next instant she was galloping swiftly down the slope. The