“I have been talking with Murray,” said the husband, recalling their conversation; “he insists that we shall never again be in danger from the Apaches. I am inclined to agree with him, though I can’t feel quite as positive as he. I told him, however, that I intended to leave my Winchester at home, when I visit the camp to-morrow. What do you think of it, Molly?”
Was it that wonderful intuition of her sex which led the wife to reply without an instant’s hesitation, “Leave the Winchester with me, Maurice?”
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SHADOW OF DANGER.
Maurice Freeman was correct in his prophecy of the weather for the following day. As had been intimated, the temperature in some portions of the Southwest, attains an intensity during the summer and early autumn, which makes one wonder how animal life withstands it. For weeks the thermometer ranges far above a hundred, and there is a record of it standing over a large area at one hundred and ten at midnight, for a full week.
Life would be unbearable except for the dryness of the climate, which renders a day more tolerable than many in the east that are twenty degrees lower, with a humidity which makes existence a burden.
But Freeman was a native of the extreme South and had lived in Arizona long enough to become acclimated. He saw before the sun rose that another “scorcher” was coming, but it did not deter him from his intended twenty-mile ride to Fort Reno and back. He partook of an early meal, kissed his little boy and girl good-by and did the same with his brave wife. Holding her for a moment in his arms, he looked down in her brown eyes and said:
“And so, Molly, you think it best that I should leave the gun at home? Have you any special reason for thinking so?”