And he turned and left her so. Oh, these men, with their quarrels and their nice points of honour—while a woman’s heart bleeds under the scuffling feet!
She watched him hurry to the train, his staggering step advertising how unfit he was for any such attempt, watched him mount the platform where she had seen the man that looked like Blatch; and then the conductor swung his lantern, the wheels began to revolve, she half cried out, and Selim at the end of his patience, bolted with her and never stopped running till he had topped the rise above the village.
Here, with some ado, she got him quieted, brought to a standstill, got off and tightened the girth, for the saddle was slipping dangerously. She climbed on once more, mounting from a fallen tree, and was moving again up the trail when, down toward Garyville, someone called her name.
“Judith!”
She did not turn her head. She knew to whom the voice belonged. As he rode up to her:
“What you doin’ here, Blatch Turrentine?” she demanded fiercely, “an’ what’ll the boys say to you for slippin’ away from ’em to-night?”
He took her inferred knowledge of all his enterprises without a word of comment. Bringing his mule up closer to her where she sat on Selim he answered:
“The boys know whar I’m at. We got word last evenin’ that the man I sell to was waitin’ for me in Garyville. He don’t know nobody but me in the business, and nobody but me could do the arrent. I hauled a load down, an’ I would have been back in plenty time, ef I hadn’t met you and Bonbright right thar whar that old Cherokee trail comes into the Garyville road.”
Judith started, her face burned in the darkness, but she said nothing. Blatch peered curiously at her as he went on:
“I reckon you never took notice of the waggon that was under the bluff thar by the turn, but that was my waggon, and I was a-settin’ on it. I wheeled myse’f round, when I seed ’twas Bonbright, and follered you two down to Garyville, and put up my mules.”