At last Amalia started and pressed her hand to her heart. What did she see far along on the trail toward the desert? Surely, a man with two animals, climbing toward the turn. Her eyes danced for gladness as she turned a flushed face toward her mother.
“Look, mamma! Far on,––no––there! It is––mamma mine––it is ’Arry King!” The mere sight of him made her break out in English. “It is that I must go to him and tell him of the Indian in the cabin before he arrive. If he come on them there, and they kill him! Oh, let me go quickly.” At the thought of him, and the danger he might meet, all her fears of the men “rouge” returned upon her, and she was gone, passing with incredible swiftness over the rough way, to try to intercept him before he could reach the cabin.
But she need not have feared, for the Indians were long gone. Before daybreak they had passed Harry where he rested in the deep dusk of the morning, without knowing he was near. With swift, silent steps they had passed down 261 the trail, taking as much of Larry Kildene’s corn as they could carry, and leaving the bloody pelt of the sheep and a very meager share of the mutton in exchange. Hungry and footsore, yet eager and glad to have come home successfully, Harry King walked forward, leading his good yellow horse, his eyes fixed on the cabin, and wondering not a little; for he, too, saw that no smoke was issuing from the chimney.
He hastened, and all Amalia’s swiftness could not bring her to him before he reached his goal. He saw first the bloody pelt hanging beside the door, and his heart stood still. Those two women never could have done that! Where were they? He dropped the leading strap, leaving the weary horses where they stood, and ran forward to enter the cabin and see the evidence of Indians all about. There were the clean-picked bones of their feast and the dirt from their feet on Amalia’s carefully kept floor. The disorder smote him, and he ran out again in the sun. Looking this way and that, he called and listened and called again. Why did no answer reach him? Poor Amalia! In her haste she had turned her foot and now, fainting with pain, and with fear for him, she could not find her voice to reply.
He thought he heard a low cry. Was it she? He ran again, and now he saw her, high above him, a dark heap on the ground. Quickly he was by her side, and, kneeling, he gathered her in his arms. He forgot all but that she was living and that he held her, and he kissed her white face and her lips, and said all the tender things in his heart. He did not know what he was saying. He only knew that he could feel her heart beat, and that she was opening her 262 eyes, and that with quivering arms she clasped his neck, and that her tears wet his cheek, and that, over and over, her lips were repeating his name.
“’Arry––’Arry King! You are come back. Ah, ’Arry King, my heart cry with the great gladness they have not killed you.”
All in the same instant he bethought himself that he must not caress her thus. Yet filled with a gladness he could not fathom he still clung to her and still murmured the words he meant never to speak to her. One thing he could do. One thing sweet and right to do. He could carry her to the cabin. How could she reach it else? His heart leaped that he had at least that right.
“No, ’Arry King. You have walk the long, hard way, and are very weary.” But still he carried her.
“Put me down, ’Arry King.” Then he obeyed her, and set her gently down. “I am too great a burden. See, thus? If you help me a little––it is that I may hop––It is better, is not?”
She smiled in his face, but he only stooped and lifted her again in his arms. “You are not a burden, Amalia. Put your arms around my neck, and lean on me.”