“Ah, less lucky that I am woman! I shall choke at the thought of eating his bread!”
“Oh, no, you won’t. That’s melodrama, my dear. If you don’t like his flour eat some of mine.
“No, keep your eyes closed and your mouth closed, too, until you get to Abilene. I may meet you or send for you up there myself. That’s what the Army’s for—we’re organized to help damsels in distress. That you are in distress I know very well indeed. While there’s a sack of flour or an ambulance mule left—well, we’ll see.”
At the encampment of the last night below the Washita, Taisie Lockhart might well have felt a sense of security. There were two troops of cavalry and all her own men bivouacked about her. But she could not sleep.
Soon after dark that night Dan McMasters, asking no consent and giving no notification, quietly rose and caught up his night horse. He disappeared in the darkness headed toward the ford. He said no word of good-by to any one, and was not missed by any one—save by one unhappy girl who had lacked his coming all these days. She was sure she hated him—when she reasoned. When she did not reason she felt her veins run hot with love of him. He had kissed her. Their arms had encircled one another. Ah, obligations?
CHAPTER XXX
MANY TRANSACTIONS
THE cattle, full fed and well-watered, had bedded down in their compact oblong, willing to rest after two days’ hard march. Nabours had doubled the night guard. The men in pairs rode in reverse around and around the herd, passed and repassed slowly, regularly, singing the cradle song of the cows.
Nabours, worn by long hours, early pulled his blankets over his face. Cinquo Centavos himself dozed under his ragged quilt, in his dreams comforted with the subconscious tinkling of the gray mare’s bell. In the cavalry camp, a half mile away, all was quiet save for the methodical tramp of the sentinels.
Midnight. Jim Nabours felt a strong hand laid on his shoulder.
“Hush!” whispered a voice. “It’s McMasters.”