The horses were tied to the hitching rack. Kate gulped down the lump that rose in her throat as she swung into the saddle. The orchestra was playing the "Blue Danube," and she especially loved that waltz. The strains followed them up the street, and tears she could not keep back fell on the horse's mane as she drooped a little over the saddlehorn.

She looked down through dimmed eyes upon the lights streaming from the windows of the Prouty House, as they climbed the steep pitch to the bench above town, and the alluring brightness increased the aching heaviness of her heart, for she felt that she was leaving all they represented behind her forever. She knew she never could find the courage to risk going through such an ordeal again.

A childhood without playmates had created a longing for companionship that was pathetic in its eagerness, and the yearning had not been modified by the isolation and monotony of her present life. To dance, to be merry, to have the opportunity to please, seemed the most important thing in the world to the girl and now she seemed to realize, in mutinous despair, that through no fault of her own she was going to be cheated of that which was her right--of that which was every girl's right--to have the pleasures which belonged to her years.

Kate's standards were the standards of the old west and of the mountains and plains, which take only personal worth into account, so she did not yet comprehend clearly what it was all about. She herself had done nothing to merit such treatment from people whose names she did not even know. She rode for a long time without speaking, trying, in her tragic bewilderment, to puzzle it out.

The silence was in painful contrast to the high spirits in which they had ridden into town. Then, they had found so much to talk about, so much to antic.i.p.ate--and it had all turned out to be so different, so far removed from anything they had dreamed. Each shrank from being the first to broach the subject of their humiliating retreat.

The moon came up after a while, full and mellow, and the night air cooled Kate's flaming cheeks. The familiar stars, too, soothed her like the presence of old friends, but, more than anything, the accustomed motion of her horse, as it took its running walk, helped to restore her mental poise.

At the top of a hill both drew rein automatically. Walking down steep descents to save their horses and themselves was an understood thing between them. At the bottom they still trudged on, leading their horses and exchanging only an occasional word upon some subject far removed from their real thoughts. It was Kate who finally said with seeming irrelevance:

"Uncle Joe brought home two collie puppies once--fat, roly-poly little things that didn't do anything but play and eat, and they were--oh, so innocent! They were into everything, and always under foot, afraid of nothing or n.o.body, because they never had been hurt.

"One night a storm came up--a cold rain that was almost snow. They ran into my tent and settled themselves on my pillow all shivering and wet.

In squirming around to make a nest for themselves they pulled my hair.

It made me cross. I was half asleep and I slapped them.

"They paid no attention to it at first--they couldn't believe I meant it, so they kept on trying to cuddle up to me to get warm. I slapped them harder. They whimpered, but still they couldn't realize that I meant to hurt them. Finally, I struck them--hard--again and again--until they howled with pain. They understood finally that they were not wanted--and they went crying and whimpering out into the rain.

"It awakened me, thinking what I had done, how they had come to me so innocent--taking kindness as a matter of course because they never had known anything else, and I had been the first to hurt them. I was the first to spoil their confidence in others--and themselves. I couldn't sleep for thinking of it, and finally I got up, and, to punish myself, went out barefooted into the storm and brought them back. They forgave me and soon settled down, but they never were quite the same, for they had learned what pain was and what it meant to be afraid.

"When I went there to-night I was like those puppies, just as green and confident--just as sure of everybody's kindness."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Katie," he replied in a low tone.

"I don't mean to whine," she went on, "but you see I wasn't expecting it, and, like the puppies, it took me a long time to understand. I thought at first it was my dress--that I looked--funny, somehow; but you said it wasn't that, so I thought maybe it was because we were 'in sheep,' but so is Neifkins, and n.o.body treated them as they did me."

"The upstarts!" savagely. "I'll never forgive myself for taking you there!"

She protested quickly:

"You're not to blame. How could you know? You meant to do something nice for me, Hughie."

He winced at that. It would have required more courage than he had to have told her at the moment the exact truth.

He held the horses back and stopped suddenly.

"Katie," turning to her, "I'd do anything in the world to make amends for what happened to-night. Isn't there some way--something I can do for you? Anything at all," he pleaded. "Just tell me--no matter what it is--you've only to let me know."

She looked at him with grateful eyes, but shook her head.

"No, Hughie, there's nothing you can do for me." She caught her breath sharply and added, "Ex--except to go on liking me. It would break my heart if you went back on me, too."

"Kate!"

"If you didn't like me any more--" She choked and the swift tears filled her eyes.

"Like you!" impetuously. "I'd do more than like you if I never had seen you before to-night!" He dropped the bridle reins and laid a hand on either shoulder, holding her at arms' length. "Your eyes are like stars!

And your mouth looks so--sweet! And your hair is so soft and pretty when the wind blows it across your forehead and face like that! I wish you could see yourself. You're beautiful in the moonlight, Kate!"

"Beautiful?" incredulously. Then she laughed happily, "Why, I'm not even pretty, Hughie."

"And what's more," he declared, "you're a wonderful girl--different--a fellow never gets tired of being with you."

"You are making up to me for what happened to-night! I nearly forget it when you tell me things like that."

"I didn't know how much I did care until they hurt you. I could have killed somebody if it wouldn't have made things worse for you."

"As much as that?" She looked at him wistfully. "You care as much as that? You see," she added slowly, "n.o.body's ever taken my part except Uncle Joe--not even my mother; and it seems--queer to think that anybody else likes me well enough to fight for me."

The unconscious pathos went straight to the boy's chivalrous heart.

"Oh, Honey!" he cried impulsively, and taking her hand in both of his he held it tight against his breast.

Her eyes grew luminous at the word and the caress.

"Honey!" she repeated in a wondering whisper. "I like that."

Her lids lowered before the new and strange expression in his face.

"You've always seemed so independent and self-reliant, like another fellow, somehow. I didn't know you were so sweet. I'm just finding you out."

She looked at him before replying, but he trembled before the soft light shining in her eyes.

He stood for a moment uncertainly, fighting for his self-control, then, casting off restraint, he threw his arms about her, crying pa.s.sionately:

"I love you! I love you, Katie! There's n.o.body like you in the whole world. Kiss me--Sweet!"

She drew back startled, looking into his eyes. Her own seemed to melt under what she saw there, and she slowly lifted her lips. When she could speak--

"You'll love me for always, Hughie?"

"For always," huskily. "For ever and ever, Katie."

CHAPTER VI

THE WOLF SCRATCHES

Mormon Joe had underestimated Jasper Toomey's capacity for extravagance and mismanagement when he had given him five years to "go broke" in, as he had accomplished it in four most effectively--so completely, in fact, that they had moved into town with only enough furniture to furnish a small house, which they spoke of as having "rented," though as yet the owner had had nothing but promises to compensate him for their occupancy.

It was close to a year after their advent in Prouty that Mrs. Toomey awakened in the small hours, listened a moment, then prodded her husband sharply:

"The wind's coming up, j.a.p, and I left out my washing."