“They came down that mesa like all heck let loose. The electricity in their hides had made a sort of blue haze—phosphorescent, they call it—and it gave ’em an awful look. Of course, the boys hadn’t let them start a stampede without doing anything to stop ’em. They were riding round ’em, yelling and shooting into the air, but on they came.
“Well, it was no place for me and Jim. It began to look to me as if that doctor was going to have his trip for nothing, but what could I do? I couldn’t go off and leave Jim, and when I tried to pick him up he fought me so I had to drop him. ’Twouldn’t have done much good anyhow because there was no place to go. So I said to myself: ‘Sit tight, old man, and if you can’t die game, die as game as you can.’
“On they came like a lot of mad things. Then, all at once, when I’d about given up hope, the boys got ’em to milling. You know how they do that? Get ’em started to going round and round instead of straight ahead and the fools will go till they drop in their tracks. When I saw ’em doing that I knew that Jim and I weren’t slated for Heaven that night so I sat still and enjoyed the sight.
“It was one wild sight. You can read about stampedes till your head aches but you’ve got to see one to know how she feels.”
“What an interesting life you’ve had, Marc, and all I’ve done was to drive a Red Cross ambulance around Chicago and win a few golf trophies,” murmured Polly, sleepily.
“Well, that depends. Perhaps it’s been interesting, but it ain’t been easy.”
They sat in silence for a while and then Scott saw that the girl had fallen asleep. He smiled as he put more wood on the fire.
“Funny that she and I should find each other out of all the world,” he meditated. “Just one nice girl and one no-account chap drawn toward each other. Some folks call it Fate. I didn’t mean to do it and maybe I’m going to wish I hadn’t—but just now I’m satisfied.”