Loseis chuckled. “If we come through all right it will be a wonderful thing to have shared,” she murmured. “It will help us over the tiresome parts.”
“You’re a wise little duck!” he whispered.
“Why?”
“Other girls refuse to admit beforehand that there could be any tiresome parts.”
“How do you know?” she asked quickly.
He swallowed his chuckle. “Oh, you learn these things from books, and from other men,” he said.
“I know that I shall not be marrying an angel,” she said, nestling against him; “and I assure you that you are not.”
“Angel enough for me!” he said, kissing her.
There was a vibration in the stillness. At first they thought it was a trick of the desirous imagination; then by degrees they became sure. Horses were approaching along the trail at a walk. The slowness of the pace was eloquent of the red girl’s terrors, and of the loyalty and strength of will that forced her out into the night in spite of her terrors. Conacher and Loseis rose to their feet.
Finally they made out shadowy forms in the trail. Loseis uttered the plaintive cry of the little bird that haunts the edges of the prairie sloughs. The shadowy horses stopped. There was a moment of painful suspense. It was not a natural place, of course, to find the kill-dee.