“I’m talking a lot”; he interrupted himself with half a laugh, “but just once, this thing’s got to be looked at; because it was so black, and I can’t let you think I wasn’t black with it. It took that, I guess, along with the rest of it all, to make me see things the way I do now; but I ain’t asking pity for it. It was a desert place, sure enough, but now it’s over. I guess I learned some things worth while. Then when I got out on the big desert, dear, I found God there, same’s I’d believed when I was a boy, back on the prairie. I shouldn’t wonder if He’d been there in the jail, too. That’s the truth of it.”
The girl leaned quickly, and gathered both his hands to her lips, love, thankfulness, and pride in his manhood, all struggling for expression. Stout old Chaucer’s brave words came to her mind, and she said them aloud, with lips yet trembling with tenderness.
“And truth thee shall deliver, it is no drede.”
“That sounds like one of your old poets,” he said, “and I guess he may have been in the desert and learned. ‘There is no drede’,” he repeated, thoughtfully. “I suppose he means no fear. That’s right.”
He was looking into Helen’s eyes, his two hands closing over hers.
“There is no fear,” he asserted. “There is nothing to fear. Oh, girl—my girl! With hate gone, and love come in, there’s nothing in the wide world to fear!”
February was well along when first they saw the glade together. Morgan Anderson and Gard had organized a company which, later, was to exploit the mine. Gard had seen to it that Sandy Larch had an interest, and Mrs. Hallard. Kate Hallard had gone away from Sylvania, but her matters were in good hands. She had sold her business to Sing Fat, and gone to California.
“For one thing,” she had said to Helen, when the two had a long talk together. “I’m goin’ to learn t’ talk decent. I can’t stand it. Sometimes when I’m sittin’ still, not sayin’ a word, jes’ listenin’ to you, seems’s if the language I’m thinkin’ in is makin’ a noise, it is so howlin’ bad.
“Don’t you think I don’t know; ner don’t you b’lieve it don’t make no difference. It makes a difference inside me. I’m sick of it. Sick of all ’t means to me. I never had a chance to find it out before; but now I know, an’ I can’t bear it. I’m goin’ t’ learn somethin’, an’ then, so long’s I always want to work—you couldn’t make a lady o’ the likes o’ me, not if you laid the money on with a trowel,—I’m goin’ to work at something worth while, an’ if I ain’t too old I’m goin’ to learn to be a nurse. Anyhow, it’s good-by the eatin’ house fer mine!”
Helen and Gard went with the first outfit of mining-supplies to the claim. These were taken by wagon to the foot of the mountain, and thence, up the trail, on the backs of the mules that had pulled them. Gard had gone for Jinny, bringing her by rail to Yuma, their point of departure, and she and Helen had become friends forthwith. Together they led the procession up the ancient wash; for Helen insisted upon walking, and her saddle horse and Gard’s followed in the rear.