She saw the tall figure standing half in and half out of the shadow, and ran to him. “Jeff,” she began reprovingly, “you didn’t come to the wedding!”
He took her outstretched hand. “No,” he agreed; “no, I—I didn’t, but——” He paused awkwardly.
“I missed you, Jeff,” she declared. “Why, I wanted you there more than anybody else. And I wanted to wait till someone could go for you. But nobody’d seen you, and they didn’t know where you were—What was the matter, Jeff?”
“I—I had business to attend to,” he explained.
“Business! And you my best, best friend——”
The train was close. Voices began to summon her back to the wedding-party.
Blandy leaned down to her. “Dear little Polly,” he said huskily, “your old side-pardner wishes you all the luck that’s in the world.”
Then she was gone again. She smiled back at him from the steps of the car, and answered the chorus of farewells that was shouted up to her. The engine-bell clanged, the train moved. Patton sprang to the girl’s side amid a shower of rice. There was more shouting, which was answered from the car platform, and the west-bound pulled out, the green lights on the rear of the last coach glowing like the eyes of a serpent.
Blandy lifted a hand to his breast, then to his throat, then to his eyes. The group of wedding guests gone, and the depot platform dark, he crossed the railroad track, walking a little uncertainly. Out in the blackness, among the sage-brush, something was moving about—an animal. He went up to it, untied a rope, spoke a word of command, and started off northward—away from the town into the desert.