The trail looped around the head of a sandy draw and wound over the crest
of a low ridge before it straightened out for a three-mile level run in
the direction of San Bonito, miles away. In walking, Starr had cut
straight across that gully and the loop, so that they had crossed the
trail twice in their journey thus far, and were still within half a mile
of the head of the loop. They should have been able to see the lights, or
at least the reflection of them on the ridge when they came to the draw.
But there was no bright path on sky or earth.
They heard the car ease down the hill, heard the grind of the gears as
the driver shifted to the intermediate for the climb that came after.
They heard the chug of the engine taking the steep grade. Then they
should have caught the white glare of the headlights as the car topped
the ridge. Starr knew that nothing obstructed the view, that in daylight
they could have seen the yellow-brown ribbon of trail where it curved
over the ridge. The machine was coming directly toward them for a short
distance, but there was no light whatever. Starr knew then that whoever
they were, they were running without lights.
"Well, I guess we'd better be ambling along," he said casually, when the
automobile had purred its way beyond hearing. "It's three or four miles
yet, and you're tired."
"Not so much." Helen May's voice was a little lower than usual, but that
was the only sign she gave of any recent deep emotion. "I'd as soon walk
awhile and let you ride." She shrank now from the thought of both riding.
"When you've ridden as far as I have," said Starr, "you'll know it's a
rest to get down and travel afoot for a few miles." He might have added
that it would have been a rest had he not been hampered by those
high-heeled riding boots, but consideration for her mental ease did not
permit him to mention it. He said no more, but started the goats ahead of
him and kept them moving in a straight line for Sunlight Basin. As
before, Rabbit followed slavishly in his footsteps, nose dropped to the
angle of placid acceptance, ears twitching forward and back so that he
would lose no slightest sound.
Helen May fell again under the spell of the desert and the moon. Starr,
walking steadily through the white-lighted barrenness with his shadow
always moving like a ghost before him, fitted once more into the desert.
Again she repeated mentally the words of the song:
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the breath of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die!
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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