"I see! Someone's cut me out, heh? I'm dead on to you now. I got your number, I have. If you're that sort—if you couldn't stand a few months' separation without goin' back on a fellow, I'm well rid of you. I wish you luck with your new fellow. I hope he ain't the fool like I been."
Still there was no answer from the girl, standing there with her head down, and her arms hanging like a dead person's by her sides.
Presently there was a clatter of hoofs in the corral, and Cyril went out at a furious trot. As the flying horseman disappeared over the hills, Nettie slowly sank to her knees, and her arms stretched out, she cried aloud:
"I wisht I was dead! I wisht I was dead!"
CHAPTER XIII
Cyril reached the purebred camp the following morning. He had ridden without stopping the whole of the previous night. His mind was a burning chaos; and he suffered all the torments of jealousy and uncertainty. Even while he told himself that he now hated Nettie, his heart went back to her—in aching tenderness about her. He pictured her as he had known her—her hair shining in the sun, and that look which love alone brings to the human eyes, lighting up her face and making it divinely beautiful to her lover. He recalled her at the little shack, where she had helped him fashion some of the rude pieces of furniture; riding across the prairie, their horses' necks touching as they pressed as close to each other as the horses would permit; the nightly meetings in the berry bushes; her hand nestling in his own. He remembered her in his arms, her lips upon his!
In the darkness of the night, the boy rode sobbing. In the gray of the morning, red of eyes, his hat well over his face, he pulled into the Bull camp, and with as steady a gait and voice as he could command he faced Langdon.
"You back already?"