“Yes,” said Mary; “but I hope it didn’t hit any of them.”
He made no reply.
“Don’t you?” she asked.
He grinned.
“D’you want a felleh to wish he was a bad shot?”
“Yes,” said Mary, smiling.
“Well, seein’ as you’re along, I do. For they wouldn’t give us up so easy if I’d a hit one. Oh,—mine was only sort o’ complimentary shots,—much as to say, ‘Same to you, gents,’ as the felleh says.”
Mary gave him a pleasant glance by way of courtesy, but was busy calming the child. The man let his weapon into its holster under his homespun coat and lapsed into silence. He looked long and steadily at the small feminine figure of his companion. His eyes passed slowly from the knee thrown over the saddle’s horn to the gentle forehead slightly bowed, as her face sank to meet the uplifted kisses of the trembling child, then over the crown and down the heavy, loosened tresses that hid the sun-bonnet hanging back from her throat by its strings and flowed on down to the saddle-bow. His admiring eyes, grave for once, had made the journey twice before he noticed that the child was trying to comfort the mother, and that the light of the sinking moon was glistening back from Mary’s falling tears.
“Better let me have the little one,” he said, “and you sort o’ fix up a little, befo’ we happen to meet up with somebody, as I said. It’s lucky we haven’t done it already.”
A little coaxing prevailed with Alice, and the transfer was made. Mary turned away her wet eyes, smiling for shame of them, and began to coil her hair, her companion’s eye following.