Had a ball of fire, shot from the cloudless sky, smitten one of their number to eternal silence, no greater, no more awesome hush could have fallen upon the merry party below the dam. Men looked at each other with stricken eyes, then turned to watch the speeding horsemen led by Winston. As Helen rode nearer to them, questioning eyes were turned to her, but she gave no heed. Only in the white, set face they read the outlines of some awful tragedy. Uncle Sid was first at her side.
"Come with me," she commanded. Then she turned and rode slowly toward the cañon. Uncle Sid rode close beside her.
"What is it, little girl?" There was a pitying, restful caress in the softened voice.
Helen longed to throw herself in his arms, to bury her head on his breast, to pour out her soul in confession before him. She controlled herself, her voice.
"I have found Elijah." Then she told him all. It was good to unburden herself. She told of the pitiful wreck from which reason had all but fled; the burst of insane rage when Seymour's name was mentioned; the dumb struggle to grasp the assurance that he was forgiven, was free; the hopeless plaint, "Why didn't they trust me before it was too late,—" the silence of the river; the wild cry,—"Is it too late, my God, is it too late?" the mad ride, fury driven, up the cañon trail. She told him of her fears for the dam, how easily it could be wrecked, and her voice, steady until now, broke pitifully. "I should have told Ralph all. Only my wicked pride kept me from it."
Uncle Sid reined his pony closer and laid a soothing hand on her arm.
"It isn't too late, little girl. Listen! You have saved Elijah. You have saved the dam!"
They were near the cañon now, and a heavy murmur, growing in intensity, pulsed in the quiet air. A great, hopeful light glowed in Helen's eyes; then it suddenly gave place to anxious fear. Was it too late after all? Had the dam given way? A moment and her questions would be answered. She sat with parted lips, and straining eyes, waiting for the rending, crashing thunder that would come if—then a sigh of relief escaped her. At the cañon's mouth, the turbid, soil-stained waters of the Sangre de Cristo were leaping and falling, but the volume was decreasing. She turned to Uncle Sid.
"Wait here. I am going up the cañon."
She felt that she was losing control of herself; she was striving against it, but in vain. Try as she would, she could lay hold of nothing in the past that could aid her. What had been her past? A sense of right and a determination to live in accord with it, and with what results? In self-confident pride she had looked down with contempt upon Ysleta boomers and their methods. At the first beck of Elijah, yielding to the subtle, intangible influence which he had thrown around her, she had abandoned her principles and had become as one of them. Not openly, not strongly, not defiantly, here was the shame and the pain of it; she had not been herself, but another. She had protested, to herself, to Elijah, she had stood up against him and had gone down before him. Day after day, the meshes of this sinister influence had held her more closely in its silken web; day after day, her past stood out more clearly with all its pitiful failures, and day after day the future, even with the light of the past beating white upon it, saw her yet more strongly bound. What deeper depths would have yawned to engulf her, had not Elijah's declaration jarred her to a loathsome recognition of what she was, of what she might become, she shuddered to forecast. A smile of bitter self-contempt played over her lips for a moment; then was gone.