He did not know how long he stood alone, his head bowed on his saddle. The raucous howl of a great gray wolf near by spelled out the lonesome tragedy of his future life for him.
Quaint and sweet philosopher, and bold as she but now had been in one great and final imparting of her real self, Molly Wingate was only a wet, weary and bedraggled maid when at length she entered the desolate encampment which stood for home. She found her mother sitting on a box under a crude awning, and cast herself on her knees, her head on that ample bosom that she had known as haven in her childhood. She wept now like a little child.
"It's bad!" said stout Mrs. Wingate, not knowing. "But you're back and alive. It looks like we're wrecked and everything lost, and we come nigh about getting all burned up, but you're back alive to your ma! Now, now!"
That night Molly turned on a sodden pallet which she had made down beside her mother in the great wagon. But she slept ill. Over and over to her lips rose the same question:
[pg 115]
"Oh, Will Banion, Will Banion, why did you take away my heart?"
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[pg 116]