Following Mullarky’s instructions, Mrs. Mullarky climbed to the driver’s seat and sent the buckboard toward the Arrow, driving as fast as she thought she dared. And Ben Mullarky, on Spotted Tail, turned his face toward Dawes, riding as he had never ridden before.
Parsons had reached the Arrow shortly after Taylor had departed for Dawes. The man had stopped at the Mullarky cabin to inquire the way from the lady, and she had frankly commented upon Parsons’ battered appearance.
“So it was Carrington that mauled you, eh?” she said. “Well, he’s a mighty evil man—the divvle take his sowl!”
Parsons concurred in this view of Carrington, though he did not tell Mrs. Mullarky so. He went on his way, refusing the good woman’s proffer of a horse, for he wanted to go afoot to the Arrow. He felt sure of Marion’s sympathy, but he wanted to make himself as pitiable an object as possible. And as he walked toward the Arrow he mentally dramatized the moment of his appearance at the ranchhouse—a bruised and battered figure dragging itself wearily forward, dusty, thirst-tortured, and despairing. He knew that spectacle would win the girl’s swift sympathy. The fact that the girl herself had been through almost the same experience did not affect him at all—he did not even think of it.
And when Parsons reached the Arrow the scene was even as he had dreamed it—Marion Harlan had seen him from afar, and came running to him, placing an arm about him, helping him forward, whispering words of sympathy in his ears, so that Parsons really began to look upon himself as a badly abused martyr.
Marion cared for him tenderly, once she got him into the ranchhouse. She bathed his bruised face, prepared breakfast for him, and later, learning from him that he had not slept during the night, she sent him off to bed, asking him as he went into the room if he had seen Ben Mullarky.
“For,” she added, “he came here early this morning, after Mr. Taylor left, and I sent him to the big house to get some things for me.”
But Parsons had not seen Mullarky.
And at last, when the morning was nearly gone, and Marion saw a horse-drawn vehicle approaching the Arrow from the direction of Dawes, she ran out, thinking Ben Mullarky had brought her “things” in his buckboard. But it was not Ben who was coming, but Mrs. Mullarky. The lady’s face was very white and serious, and when the girl came close and she saw the look on the good woman’s face, she halted in her tracks and stood rigid, her own face paling.