She was gone, and he could do nothing but look after her helplessly.
“Your horse has lamed itself,” he called when he was at last able to concern himself with such matters, but either the spattering hoofbeats prevented her hearing his voice or she was determined not to reply; he could not tell which. There was nothing to do but return to his wagon.
“Confound it!” he exclaimed. “Now you’ve made an ass of yourself and let her get away without finding out who she was or where she lived.” He liked her—and he was an ass! He anathematized himself openly.
When well away from the man, Elizabeth saw that his observation regarding the prospects of meeting people on such a day was a perfectly natural one and not aimed at her at all. She laughed at the spectacle she was sure she must have presented, and wished now that she had not been in such a hurry in leaving him. Here was a man worth looking at. The gesture as he had lifted his hat indicated refinement.
“Curious that I haven’t seen him—he lives here some where,” she pondered, and now that she could not find out she rated herself severely for the embarrassment which was apt to assail her at critical moments.
Patsie limped miserably, and Elizabeth brought her down to a walk and let her droop along the old country road, and speculated on this new specimen of masculinity which had dropped from the skies to puzzle and delight her soul.
The rain beat heavily now, and Elizabeth began to take her situation into account after thinking over the stranger a few minutes. There was a perfect deluge of water from the burdened sky, and though no sign of a house could be seen, she knew she could not be far from the Chamberlain homestead; but the ground was becoming more and more soggy, and her garments were not of the heaviest. Patsie’s feet went ploop, ploop, ploop, in the soft, muddy road. Elizabeth urged her to the fastest possible walking speed in spite of her lameness. To trot or gallop was impossible, and the young horse slipped now and then in a manner which would have unseated a less skilful rider.
The sodden Kansas road was aflood with this spring rain. Patsie laboured heavily and Elizabeth gave herself up to her cogitations again. Her mind had reacted to more pleasant subjects than home affairs.
It had been a dreary, disheartening ride, and yet it had had its compensations, for was not the rider young and the earth filled with the freshness of spring? The short and tender grass bordered the road to the very wheel-ruts; the meadow larks sang regardless of the rain, or mayhap in sheer meadow-lark delight because of it. To the south a prairie chicken drummed, and a cow called to her calf, whose reply came from a point still farther in the distance. At the sound of the cow’s lowing Elizabeth Farnshaw peered delightedly through mists.
“I knew it couldn’t be much farther, Patsie,” she said, leaning forward and patting the neck of the dripping horse. Little spurts of water flew spatteringly from under the affectionate palm, and Elizabeth shook her bare hand to free it from the wet hairs which adhered to it, laughing at her rainsoaked condition.