"Jamieson," said the evangelist, "if God spares my life I shall meet your mother and sister. I shall cheer them and help them. I believe I shall save them. If they are given to me, I shall come straight back. Do not go with the command. Stay behind, Jamieson. I'll bring them to you."
"I'll stay, then. I believe——"
The preacher smiled down, and to every side. Then he clucked to Shadrach. The tugs straightened. The wagon rolled slowly out of the post.
The sunlight shone upon the green box and the red wheels, and upon the staunch old driver, who never once looked back. Above him, emblem of the sublime Martyr, sagged the high board cross.
CHAPTER XXI
A MEETING BY THE FORD
Under the cottonwoods that shadowed the landing-place, the clematis trailed its tufts of fluffy grey; a cluster of wind-flowers nodded, winking their showy blue eyes; birds whisked about to fetch straws and scraps for their building; and the grass, bright green, but stubby, wore a changing spatterwork of sun and leaf.
Marylyn let drop her bonnet and the cow-horn that hung by a thong to her wrist. Then, with folded hands, she looked up and around her, sniffing the warm air in delight. The Texas home had never offered such a lovely retreat. There, the arid mesa had grown thorny mesquite, scraggled cypress, or stunted live-oak for a shade; sand had whirled ceaselessly before a high, hot wind; no flowers had bloomed but the pale toadflax and the prickly-pear; and beside the salt lakes of that almost waterless waste had nested only the vulture.