"Rufus!" roared the priest. "I declare I'll take a stick to you. Come away! D' y' hear? She's tired."
"Good-night," she answered, in a broken whisper, so cold it stabbed me like steel; and she put out her hand in the mechanical way of the well-bred woman in every land.
"Is that all?" I asked, holding the hand as if it had been a galvanic battery, though the priest was coming straight towards us.
"All?" she returned, the lashes falling over the misty, gray eyes. "Ah, Rufus! Are we playing jest is earnest, or earnest is jest?" and she turned quickly and went to her tent.
How long I stood in reverie, I do not know. The priest's broad hand presently came down on my shoulder with a savage thud.
"Ye blunder-busticus, ye, what have ye been doing?" he asked. "The Little Statue was crying when she went to her tent."
"Crying?"
"Yes, ye idiot. I'll stay by her to-morrow."
And he did. Nor could he have contrived severer punishment for the unfortunate effect of my words. Fool, that I was! I should keep myself in hand henceforth. How many men have made that vow regarding the woman they love? Those that have kept it, I trow, could be counted easily enough. But I had no opportunity to break my vow; for the priest rode with Frances Sutherland the whole of the second day, and not once did he let loose his scorpion wit. She had breakfast alone in her tent next morning, the priest carrying tea and toast to her; and when she came out, she leaped to her saddle so quickly I lost the expected favor of placing that imperious foot in the stirrup. We set out three abreast, and I had no courage to read my fate from the cold, marble face. The ground became rougher. We were forced to follow long detours round sloughs, and I gladly fell to the rear where I was unobserved. Clumps of willows alone broke the endless dip of the plain. Glassy creeks glittered silver through the green, and ever the trail, like a narrow ribbon of many loops, fled before us to the dim sky-line.
When we halted for our nooning, Frances Sutherland had slipped from her saddle and gone off picking prairie roses before either the priest or I noticed her absence.