“Let Jimmie go on with the prisoners and the rest of the boys,” he said to Sims. “You wait here with me. I must leave one message.”
A minute later the cavalcade stole away, following the winding river bank for a mile before setting foot on the plain.
Then, with Sims crouching, armed, behind the nearest protection, Bud Larkin walked softly to the house. He knew which was her window and went straight there, finding it open as he had expected. Listening carefully he heard no sound from within. Then he breathed the one word, “Julie,” and immediately there came a rustling of the bed as she rose.
Knowing that she had been awake and was coming to him, he turned away his eyes until he felt her strong little hand on his shoulder. Then he looked up to find her in an overwrap with her luxuriant hair falling down over her shoulders, her eyes big and luminously dusky.
“Darling,” she said, “I have heard everything, and I am so glad.”
“Then you could have given the alarm at any time?” 188
“Yes.”
“God bless your faithful little heart!” he said fervently, and, reaching up, drew down her face to his and kissed her.
It was their second kiss and they both thrilled from head to foot with this tantalization of the hunger of their love. All the longing of their enforced separation seemed to burst the dam that had held it, and, for a time, they forgot all things but the living, moving tide of their own love.
At last the girl disengaged herself from his eager hands, with hot cheeks and bright, flame-lit eyes. Her breath came fast, and it was a moment before she could compose herself.