XI
LARRY’S ACQUITTAL
A warm wind from the Pacific, which had swept down through the Rockies’ passes, had mitigated the Arctic cold, and the snow lay no more than thinly sprinkled upon the prairie. Hetty Torrance and Miss Schuyler were riding up through the birch bluff from the bridge of the Cedar. It was dim among the trees, for dusk was closing in, the trail was rough and steep, and Hetty drew bridle at a turn of it.
“I quite fancied we would have been home before it was dark, and my father would be just savage if he knew we were out alone,” she said. “Of course, he wouldn’t have let us go if he had been at Cedar.”
Flora Schuyler looked about her with a shiver. The wind that shook the birches had grown perceptibly colder: the gloom beneath them deepened rapidly, and there was a doleful wailing amidst the swinging boughs. Beyond the bluff the white wilderness, sinking into dimness now, ran back, waste and empty, to the horizon. Miss Schuyler was from the cities, and the loneliness of the prairie is most impressive when night is closing down.
“Then one could have wished he had been at home,” she said.
Perhaps Hetty did not hear her plainly, for the branches thrashed above them just then. “Oh, that’s quite right. Folks are not apt to worry much over the things they don’t know about,” she said.
“It was not your father I was sorry for,” Flora Schuyler said sharply. “The sod is too hard for fast riding, and it will be ’most an hour yet before we get home. I wish we were not alone, Hetty.”
Hetty sighed. “It was so convenient once!” she said. “Whenever I wanted to ride out I had only to send for Larry. It’s quite different now.”
“I have no doubt Mr. Clavering would have come,” said Miss Schuyler.