At that moment Orlando saw in the distance, far north of both Tralee and Slow Down Ranch, a horse, ridden by a woman, galloping on the prairie. Presently as he watched the headlong gallop, the horse came down and the rider was thrown. He watched intently for a moment, and then he saw that the woman did not move, but lay still beside the fallen horse.
He dug his heels into the broncho’s side, and although it had done its day’s work, it reached out upon the trail as though fresh from the corral. It bucked malevolently as it went, but it went.
It was apparent that no one else had seen the accident. Orlando had been at a point of vantage on a lonely rise about eighty feet above the level of the prairie. Where horse and rider lay was a good two miles, but within seven minutes he had reached the spot.
Flinging the bridle over the broncho’s neck, he dismounted. As he did so, a cry broke from him. It was, as it were, an answer to the “Oh, Orlando!” which had been ringing in his ears. There, lying upon the ground beside the horse, with its broken leg caught in a gopher’s hole, was Louise.
Orlando’s ruddy face turned white; something seemed to blind him for an instant, and then he was on his knees beside her, lifting up her head, feeling her heart. Presently the colour came back to his face with a rush. Her heart was beating; her pulse trembled under his fingers; she was only unconscious. But was there other injury? Was arm or leg broken? He called to her. Then with an exclamation of self-reproach, he laid her down again on the ground, ran to his broncho; caught the water-bottle from the saddle, lifted her head, and poured some water between the white lips.
Presently her eyes opened, and she stared confusedly at Orlando, unable to realize what had happened. Then memory came back, and with it her very life-blood seemed to flow like water through the opening gates of a flume, with all the weight of the river behind. As her face flooded, she shivered with emotion. She was resting against his knee; her head was upon his arm; his face was very near; and there was that in his eyes which told a story that any woman, loving, would be thrilled at seeing. What restrained him from clasping her to his breast? What kept her arms by her side?
The sun was gone, leaving only a glimmer behind; the swift twilight of the prairie was drawing down. Warm currents of air were passing like waves of a sea of breath over the wide plains; the stars were softly stinging the sky, and a bright moon was asserting itself in the growing dusk. Here they were who, without words or acts, had been to each other what Adam and Eve were in the Garden, without furtiveness, and guiltless of secret acts which poison Love. What restrained them was native, childlike camaraderie, intense, unusual and strange. The world would call them romancists, if they believed that this restraint could be. But there was something more. With all their frank childlikeness, there was also a shyness, a reserve, which would not have been, if either had ever eaten of the Fruit of Understanding until they met each other for the first time.
“Are you—are you hurt?” he asked, his voice calmer than his spirit, his heart beating terribly hard. “I’m all right,” she answered. “I fell soft. You see, I’m very light.”
“No bones broken? Are you sure?” he asked solicitously.
She sat erect, drawing away from his arms and the support of his knee. “Don’t you see my legs and arms are all right! Help me up, please,” she added, and stretched out a hand.