Miss Allen considered going straight down to him, and then walking around to where her horse was tied. She was afraid to leave him while she went for the horse and rode around to where he was. She was afraid she might miss him somehow the Badlands had stamped that fear deep into her soul.
“Wait!” she shouted, her hands cupped around her trembling lips, tears rolling down her cheeks “Wait baby! I'm coming for you.” She hoped that the Kid heard what she said, but she could not be sure, for she did not hear him reply. But he did not go on at once, and she thought he would wait.
Miss Allen picked up her skirts away from her ankles and started running down the steep slope. The Kid, away down below, stared up at her. She went down a third of the way, and stopped just in time to save herself from going over a sheer wall of rocks—stopped because a rock which she dislodged with her foot rolled down the slope a few feet, gave a leap into space and disappeared.
A step at a time Miss Allen crept down to where the rock had bounced off into nothingness, and gave one look and crouched close to the earth. A hundred feet, it must be, straight down. After the first shock she looked to the right and the left and saw that she must go back, and down upon the other side.
Away down there at the bottom, the Kid sat still on his horse and stared up at her. And Miss Allen calling to him that she would come, started back up to the peak.
CHAPTER 18. THE LONG WAY ROUND
Miss Allen turned to yell encouragingly to the Kid, and she saw that he was going on slowly, his head turned to watch her. She told him to wait where he was, and she would come around the mountain and get him and take him home. “Do you hear me, baby?” she asked imploringly after she had told him just what she meant to do. “Answer me, baby!”
“I ain't a baby!” his voice came faintly shrill after a minute. “I'm a rell ole cowpuncher.”
Miss Allen thought that was what he said, but at the time she did not quite understand, except his denial of being a baby; that was clear enough. She turned to the climb, feeling that she must hurry if she expected to get him and take him home before dark. She knew that every minute was precious and must not be wasted. It was well after noon—she had forgotten to eat her lunch, but her watch said it was nearly one o'clock already. She had no idea how far she had ridden, but she thought it must be twelve miles at least.