There is a mesmeric force about the human hair, a woman's hair, resting on a man's upturned face—although I do not mean this in a sentimental sense. It is a natural law; as a wild bird can be put into a state of mimic sleep by laying it on its back and pressing its eyes with feathers.
The frenzy of Doloria's clutching fingers that still held my cheeks, and the pressure of her body whose excited breathing wedged me even tighter down between the logs, had been to us no more than incidents in the desperate struggle we were making, each for the other's safety. But, blinded by her hair, for the moment I desisted and, taking quick advantage of this, she whispered:
"If you've any wish to please me, listen! I know those men by heart—each is an arrant coward when alone. So he won't crawl closer. By the time he brings the others back we'll be inside the fort!"
"That's just it," I retorted. "The fort's no good at night—they'll rush it! He's got to be stopped, Doloria!"
"Jack, do this for me, please?" she begged. Her lips were very near. "If we have to die, we will—but I can't see you go out on that prairie alone—I simply can't!" And I grew still.
Soon I felt her hands upon my chest as she pushed herself up to look over the logs. By this movement the blindfold was partially lifted and I could see her—her body curved backward, as a mermaid that raises itself at arm's length upon the shore. Her lips were parted, her eyes were steady and level as they gazed searchingly across the sea of grass—as many a nymph, no doubt, hiding from a company of swashbuckling gnomes, must have peeped out to see if her glade were safe before venturing from the wood. In another moment she had left me and run a few steps toward the prairie, crying:
"Look! He's 'way, 'way off!"
"I can't look," I called after her. "You've put me here for life!"
Indeed, I was so completely held that the first result of my twisting seemed only to make me lose ground. She came back, this time laughing without control—but I knew the sign; my nerves, too, had recently been drunk on relaxation from a strain. Tucking up her hair with a few quick movements she held down both hands to me and, after more squirming, I worked myself out. But our enemy had by this time disappeared.
"If that fellow's back, the others are, too," I said, with some display of temper. "You've made the very devil of a mess!"