The Man of the Desert

by Grace Livingston Hill

With a sigh she opened the little book, and it fell apart of itself to the place where he had read the night before, the page still marked by the little silk cord he had placed so carefully. She could see him now with the firelight flickering on his face, and the moonlight silvering his head, that strong tender look upon his face. How wonderful he had been!

She read the psalm over now herself, the first time in her life she had ever consciously given herself to reading the Bible. But there was a charm about the words that gave them new meaning, the charm of his voice as she heard them in memory and watched again his face change and stir at the words as he read.

The day waned and the train flew on, but the landscape had lost its attraction now for the girl. She pleaded weariness and remained apart from the rest, dreaming over her wonderful experience, and thinking new deep thoughts of wonder, regret, sadness, joy, and when night fell and the great moon rose lighting the world again, she knelt beside her car window, looking long into the wide clear sky, the sky that covered him and herself; the moon that looked down upon them both. Then switching on the electric light over her berth she read the psalm once more, and fell asleep with her cheek upon the little book and in her heart a prayer for him.

John Brownleigh, standing upon the station platform, watching the train disappear behind the foot-hills, experienced, for the first time since his coming to Arizona, a feeling of the utmost desolation. Lonely he had been, and homesick, sometimes, but always with a sense that he was master of it all, and that with the delight of his work it would pass and leave him free and glad in the power wherewith his God had called him to the service. But now he felt that with this train the light of life was going from him, and all the glory of Arizona and the world in which he had loved to be was darkened on her account. For a moment or two his soul cried out that it could not be, that he must mount some winged steed and speed after her whom his heart had enthroned. Then the wall of the inevitable appeared before his eager eyes, and Reason crowded close to bring him to his senses. He turned away to hide the emotion in his face. The stolid Indian boy, who had been holding both horses, received his customary smile and pleasant word, but the missionary gave them more by habit than thought this time. His soul had entered its Gethsemane, and his spirit was bowed within him.

As soon as he could get away from the people about the station who had their little griefs and joys and perplexities to tell him, he mounted Billy, and leading the borrowed pony rode away into the desert, retracing the way they had come together but a short time before.

Billy was tired and walked slowly, drooping his head, and his master was sad at heart, so there was no cheerful converse between them as they travelled along.

It was not far they went, only back to the edge of the corn, where they had made their last stop of the journey together a few short hours before, and here the missionary halted and gave the beasts their freedom for a respite and refreshment. He himself felt too weary of soul to go further.

He took out the ring, the little ring that was too small to go more than half-way on his smallest finger, the ring she had taken warm and flashing from her white hand and laid within his palm!

The sun low down in the west stole into the heart of the jewel and sent its glory in a million multicoloured facets, piercing his soul with the pain and the joy of his love. He cast himself down upon the grass where she had sat, where, with his eyes closed and his lips upon the jewel she had worn, he met his enemy and fought his battle out.

Wearied at last with the contest, he slept. The sun went down, the moon made itself manifest once more, and when the night went coursing down its way of silver, two jewels softly gleamed in its radiance, the one upon his finger where he had pressed her ring, the other from the grass beside him. With a curious wonder he put forth his hand to the second and found it was the topaz set in the handle of her whip which she had dropped and forgotten when they sat together and talked by the way. He seized it eagerly now, and gathered it to him. It seemed almost a message of comfort from her he loved. It was something tangible, this, and the ring, to show him he had not dreamed her coming; she had been real, and she had wanted him to tell her of his love, had said it would make a difference all the rest of her life.