In the dust that he left behind they resumed their way. Dr. Slavens had drawn Agnes Horton’s hand through his arm; he felt that it was cold and trembling. He looked at her, perplexity in his kind eyes.
“That’s the man who stood with Peterson at the head of the line,” he said.
“Yes; Jerry Boyle,” she whispered, looking behind her fearfully. “Let’s hurry on! I’m afraid,” she added with the ineffectiveness of dissimulation, “that I’ve kept you from your sleep too long. Together with your awful experience and that long ride, you must be shattered for the want of rest.”
“Yet I could stand up under a good deal more,” he rejoined, his thoughts trailing Jerry Boyle up the shadowy gorge. “But I was asking you, before that fellow broke in––”
She raised her hand appealingly.
“Don’t, please. Please–not now!”
CHAPTER XIII
SENTIMENT AND NAILS
Vast changes had come over the face of that land in a few days. Every quarter-section within reach of water for domestic uses had its tent or its dugout in the hillside or its hastily built cabin of planks. Where miles of unpeopled desert had stretched lonely and gray a week before, the smoke of three thousand fires rose up each morning now, proclaiming a new domain in the kingdom of husbandry.
On the different levels of that rugged country, men and women had planted their tent-poles and their hopes. Unacquainted with its rigors, they were unappalled by the hardships, which lay ahead of them, dimly understood. For that early autumn weather was benignant, and the sun was mellow on the hills.