He waited, but no more words would come--no other thought. He rose, feeling strangely elated, as if some great good fortune had suddenly come into his possession. It had been like this when the sleeping child lay in his arms; he could almost feel her little cheek against his bosom, and hear the soft music of her breathing. He went back to the wagon and sat on the tongue, still oblivious to any possible danger of surprise. He spoke aloud, for company: "She wouldn't have wanted me to look at her--she couldn't have looked natural. Glad I didn't. Great Scott! but that was a first-rate prayer! Wouldn't have thought after thirty years I could have done so well. And it was all there, everything was in them words! If she knew what I was doing, she couldn't have asked nothing more, for I reckon she wouldn't expect a man like ME to ask no favors for that white-livered cowardly second-husband of hers. I put in all my plea for the little girl. Dinged if I understand how I come to be so intelligent and handy at what's all new business to me! I just says, 'O God, take care of the little girl,'--just them words." He rose with an air of great content and went around to the front in search of provisions. Presently he spoke aloud: "And as I ain't asked nothing for myself since I run off from home I guess God won't mind putting the little girl on my expense-account." CHAPTER V A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE It came over him with disconcerting suddenness that he had lost a great deal of time, and that every moment spent in the covered wagon was fraught with imminent danger. It was not in his mind that the hand of highwaymen might discover his hiding-place. Knowing them as he did, he was sure they would not come so far from their haunts or from the Sante Fe train in pursuit of him. But the Indians roamed the Panhandle, as much at home there as in their reservations--and here they were much more dangerous. Had no savage eye discerned that wagon during the brilliant August day? Might it be that even while he slept at the feet of the dead woman, a feathered head had slipped under the canvas side, a red face had bent over him? It was a disquieting fancy. Willock told himself that, had such been the case, his scalp-lock would not still adorn his own person; for all that, he was eager to be gone. Instead of eating in the wagon, he wrapped up some food in a bread-cloth, placed this with a few other articles in a tarpaulin--among them, powder and shot--and, having lifted the keg of water to one shoulder, and the rope-bound tarpaulin to the other, he left the wagon with a loaded gun in his hand.