“It’s a lonely place,” he said. “We heaped a cairn of stones over it, and set up a little wooden headboard, bearing his name and the date of his death.”
“I shall put a costly monument there some time,” she announced.
“He was worthy of it; for he was a good man, and I’m sure his last thoughts were of you.”
The brown eyes dimmed again with tears.
She placed the emeralds in the buckskin bag, stowed it in the bosom of her dress, and walked to the door. Standing there, she glanced longingly up the trail and out across the river, to the side of the cañon she had scaled, and then let her eyes wander on to the smoking pines that stood in blackened ranks still higher.
“I’m expecting every minute that Bruce will come,” she said. “Something is keeping him.” She sat down again by the table. “Let me get you some breakfast,” she urged; “and pardon me for not thinking of it before.”
“I’ve been too busy to think of anything to eat, my dear girl. Does Bruce know you are here?”
“Yes; I left word for him that I was going to see my uncle, and told him how to get here. But I’m neglecting you! I have been too much excited. I’ll get you something. And that will help to pass the time away, too.”
She was soon busy in the little kitchen.
Buffalo Bill was thinking of the man he had seen under the tree. “I wonder if he could have been nearer the house than that?” he began now to question, as he left the house again and walked out to the tree.