A Girl of the Plains Country

								

the night, you come out to Uncle Hank—hear? Uncle Hank’s death on
all them kind o’ varmints.”
He saw her to the ambulance, then turned and replenished the fire
and, filling his pipe, sat down to await Van Brunt’s return. An hour
later the two men were asleep, wrapped in their blankets. There was
no sound save the wind in the cottonwoods and the occasional, far,
coyote cry, the nearer chirp or stir of a bird. During the earlier
part of the night Van Brunt groaned, turned and turned again;
roused, sighed, rose to feed the dying fire, sat a while beside it,
and went back to his blankets. Then he slept heavily, and for a long
time the camp was silent under the moon and stars. In the dark hour
just before dawn the old man wakened suddenly and opened his eyes to
see Hilda crouching beside him, her hand on his shoulder.
“Uncle Hank!” she gasped, “I had such a dreadful dream, and when I
waked, why, you see that ambulance is like a room; it’s got things
like doors in it; and I was afraid the door-imp—”
“All right, sister.”
He lifted his head and looked about. She had left her aunt
unawakened in the ambulance; she had skirted the form of her
sleeping father—and come to him—to him, the friend of a day!
“Here!” whispered the man who had said he was all alone in the
world. Swiftly he unwound his blankets, wrapped the small
nightgowned figure in them, and settled her cosily, reaching down to
get his boots and draw them on.
“But you aren’t going away, Uncle Hank?” quavered the child.
“Not fur,” returned he humorously, as he went over and put more wood
on the fire, then seated himself beside the giant cocoon from whose
top protruded the small face with the big black eyes. These eyes,
under the influence of a good grip on a man’s blue flannel sleeve,
gradually lost their wildness. They filmed gently; the long lashes
descended halfway, were swept up again with a startled gasp; and
after two or three checkings and haltings, Hilda slept. The ranch
boss replaced the blankets when from time to time her small,
impatient arm flung them off.
Lost in the immensity of night, the camp-fire died down, was
replenished, died down again, and showed only winking embers as the
east began to blush with a new day.

                             CHAPTER II



                       AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART

Southwestward again, all that day—beautifully long for the little
girl, wearily lengthened for Miss Valeria who alternately complained
of the speed and urged the driver to hurry a little. Pearsall always
gave her the same good-humored answer, as though it had been a child
fretting at him: “Ponies got forty-odd miles to go, ma’am; have to
just hold this same good road pace.”
At noon they stopped and got out for a rest; a “dry camp” he called
it, with only water from the canteens to make their coffee. Through
the afternoon, the thud-thud of hoofs, the creak and swish of wheels