Lorraine looked at him suspiciously. Lone thought her eyes were the
most wonderful eyes--and the most terrible--that he had ever seen.
Almond-shaped they were, the irises a clear, dark gray, the eyeballs
blue-white like a healthy baby's. That was the wonder of them. But
their glassy shine made them terrible. Her lids lifted in a sudden
stare.
"You're not the man, are you? I--I think he was taller than you. And
his hat was brown. He's a brute--a _beast_! To shoot a man just
riding along---- It rained," she added plaintively. "My bag is back
there somewhere under a bush. I think I could find the bush--it was
where a rabbit was sitting--but he's probably gone by this time. A
rabbit," she told him impressively, "wouldn't sit out in the rain all
night, would he? He'd get wet. And a rabbit would feel horrid when he
was wet--such thick fur he never _would_ get dried out. Where do they
go when it rains? They have holes in the ground, don't they?"
"Yes. Sure, they do. I'll show you one, down the road here a little
piece. Come on--it ain't far."
To see a rabbit hole in the ground, Lorraine consented to mount and
ride while Lone walked beside her, agreeing with everything she said
that needed agreement. When she had gone a few rods, however, she
began to call him Charlie and to criticise the direction of the
picture. They should not, she declared, mix murders and thunderstorms
in the same scene. While the storm effect was perfectly _wonderful_,
she thought it rather detracted from the killing. She did not believe
in lumping big stuff together like that. Why not have the killing done
by moonlight, and use the storm when the murderer was getting away, or
something like that? And as for taking them out on location and making
all those storm scenes without telling them in advance so that they
could have dry clothes afterwards, she thought it a perfect outrage!
If it were not for spoiling the picture, she would quit, she asserted
indignantly. She thought the director had better go back to driving a
laundry wagon, which was probably where he came from.
Lone agreed with her, even though he did not know what she was talking
about. He walked as fast as he could, but even so he could not travel
the six miles to the ranch very quickly. He could see that the girl
was burning up with fever, and he could hear her voice growing
husky,--could hear, too, the painful labouring of her breath. When she
was not mumbling incoherent nonsense she was laughing hoarsely at the
plight she was in, and after that she would hold both hands to her
chest and moan in a way that made Lone grind his teeth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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