She assented languidly from the back seat; he was on the front seat, with the middle seat for a table between them. First Mr. Boyle showed her some tricks with the cards and kindled her momentary and flashing interest in a mysteriously evoked but evanescent knave. Then they played euchre, at which Miss Cantire cheated adorably, and Mr. Boyle lost game after game shamelessly. Then once or twice Miss Cantire was fain to put her cards to her mouth to conceal an apologetic yawn, and her blue-veined eyelids grew heavy. Whereupon Mr. Boyle suggested that she should make herself comfortable in the corner of the coach with as many cushions as she liked and the despised shawl, while he took the night air in a prowl around the coach and a lookout for the returning party. Doing so, he was delighted, after a turn or two, to find her asleep, and so returned contentedly to his sentry round.
He was some distance from the coach when a low moaning sound in the thicket presently increased until it rose and fell in a prolonged howl that was repeated from the darkened plains beyond. He recognized the voice of wolves; he instinctively felt the sickening cause of it. They had scented the dead bodies, and he now regretted that he had left his own victim so near the coach. He was hastening thither when a cry, this time human and more terrifying, came from the coach. He turned towards it as its door flew open and Miss Cantire came rushing toward him. Her face was colorless, her eyes wild with fear, and her tall, slim figure trembled convulsively as she frantically caught at the lapels of his coat, as if to hide herself within its folds, and gasped breathlessly,—
“What is it? Oh! Mr. Boyle, save me!”
“They are wolves,” he said hurriedly. “But there is no danger; they would never attack you; you were safe where you were; let me lead you back.”
But she remained rooted to the spot, still clinging desperately to his coat. “No, no!” she said, “I dare not! I heard that awful cry in my sleep. I looked out and saw it—a dreadful creature with yellow eyes and tongue, and a sickening breath as it passed between the wheels just below me. Ah! What's that?” and she again lapsed in nervous terror against him.
Boyle passed his arm around her promptly, firmly, masterfully. She seemed to feel the implied protection, and yielded to it gratefully, with the further breakdown of a sob. “There is no danger,” he repeated cheerfully. “Wolves are not good to look at, I know, but they wouldn't have attacked you. The beast only scents some carrion on the plain, and you probably frightened him more than he did you. Lean on me,” he continued as her step tottered; “you will be better in the coach.”
“And you won't leave me alone again?” she said in hesitating terror.
“No!”
He supported her to the coach gravely, gently—her master and still more his own for all that her beautiful loosened hair was against his cheek and shoulder, its perfume in his nostrils, and the contour of her lithe and perfect figure against his own. He helped her back into the coach, with the aid of the cushions and shawl arranged a reclining couch for her on the back seat, and then resumed his old place patiently. By degrees the color came back to her face—as much of it as was not hidden by her handkerchief.
Then a tremulous voice behind it began a half-smothered apology. “I am SO ashamed, Mr. Boyle—I really could not help it! But it was so sudden—and so horrible—I shouldn't have been afraid of it had it been really an Indian with a scalping knife—instead of that beast! I don't know why I did it—but I was alone—and seemed to be dead—and you were dead too and they were coming to eat me! They do, you know—you said so just now! Perhaps I was dreaming. I don't know what you must think of me—I had no idea I was such a coward!”