“Where are we a-goin’?” she asked him timidly.
He stopped at that, turned, and, resting his hand on the cantle of his saddle, smiled at her for the first time.
“Don’t you savvy the answer to that question, Joan?”
She shook her head.
The smile faded. “We’re goin’ to be married,” said he sternly, and they rode on.
They were married by the justice, a pleasant, silent fellow, who with Western courtesy, asked no more questions than were absolutely needful, and in fifteen minutes Joan mounted her horse again, a ring on the third finger of her left hand.
“Now,” said Pierre, standing at her stirrup, his shining, smoke-blue eyes lifted to her, his hand on her boot, “you’ll be wantin’ some things—some clothes?”
“No,” said Joan. “Maud went with me an’ helped me buy things with my pay just yesterday. I won’t be needin’ anything.”
“All right,” said he. “We’re off, then!” And he flung himself with a sudden wild, boyish “Whoopee!” on his pony, gave a clip to Joan’s horse and his own, and away they galloped, a pair of young, wild things, out from the town through a straggling street to where the road boldly stretched itself toward a great land of sagebrush, of buttes humping their backs against the brilliant sky. Down the valley they rode, trotting, walking, galloping, till, turning westward, they mounted a sharp slope and came up above the plain. Below, in the heart of the long, narrow valley, the river coiled and wandered, divided and came together again into a swift stream, amongst aspen islands and willow swamps. Beyond this strange, lonely river-bed, the cottonwoods began, and, above them, the pine forests massed themselves and strode up the foothills of the gigantic range, that range of iron rocks, sharp, thin, and brittle where they scraped the sky.
At the top of the hill, Pierre put out his hand and pulled Joan’s rein, drawing her to a stop beside him.