He stood looking after them as they went up the trail in the moonlight "Oh! this cursed country!" he groaned. "It's so far from any place. He'll never see her again, I'm sure. Well, I must keep this thing going as I promised. But some of the number I'll cut out, you can bet."
Straight on through the moonlight rode the two men, the one trying to make real the words that marched with ceaseless tramp across his brain: "Doctors hold out no hope of recovery." They seemed like words of fire written across the prairie. The other, riding a little behind, except where the trail grew difficult or indistinct, silent but alert for opportunity to offer aid or show sympathy, governing carefully the pace so that the best possible speed could be got out of the superb animals that with their swinging lope covered the long slopes up and down. The memory of that ride to Shock in after years was like that of a ghastly nightmare, a strange intermingling of moonlight and shadow; the murmur of the night wind about his ears; the steady beat of the hoofs upon the beaten trail; the pause at midnight by the upper ford of the Black Dog to feed and rest their horses; and then the steady onward push through the night till the grey and gold of the eastern sky told that the morning had come. He could never forget how the first beams of the rising sun smote his eyes like the cut of a whip till he was almost forced to cry out in his pain. He remembered how it seemed to him as if he were in the grip of some mysterious force impelling him onward in that unending, relentless lope. Another pause at sunrise to give the horses breath, and then on again they rode through that terrible red light of the rising sun, till at length in the still early forenoon the manse of Big River was reached. Their horses were jaded and leg-weary, for in the thirteen hours during which they had kept up their long, swinging gait they had covered more than a hundred miles.
The McIntyres were expecting them.
"We want speak about his mother, dear," said the little woman of the manse, with a warm feeling in her heart for the missionary who had spent a night with them some seven months ago, and had told them so simply and fully of his life, a story of which the heart and soul had been his mother. "It hurts to speak of these things for a while," she added.
"Yes, my darling, I know," said her husband, his eyes lingering tenderly upon the face looking so sweet, but so wan and pale above the black dress and crepe collar. "We know, we know, darling," he repeated, taking her in his arms. They were both thinking of the little mound looking so small upon the wide prairie, small but big enough to hold all their heart's treasure. For five months the manse had been overrunning with heaven's own light; and with joy that rippled and flowed from baby laughter, that lurked in dimpled fingers and dimpled toes and dimpled cheeks, every dimple a well of light and joy—and then the little mound with its white railing, and only the echoes of the laughter and the memory of the dimpled fingers, toes, and cheeks,—and the empty manse! It was this memory that made their welcome of Shock so full of tender understanding. There is no speech like heart-speech, and during the hour in the Big River manse to Shock's heart there came—how he could not have told—the inarticulate message of sympathy that healed and comforted, so that he drove away rested and refreshed as with sleep. As they were hitching up the team Ike found opportunity to whisper to Shock: "I say, p'rhaps you'd rather he'd go with you; he'd help you more, p'rhaps?"
"No, no, Ike; don't leave me; I want you," Shock had replied.
"All right, boss; that suits me," was Ike's answer, glad that his offer had not been accepted.
"Good-bye," said Mr. McIntyre, waving his hand. "Do not spare them, Ike," he continued. "They can make Spruce Creek in two hours and a half easily."
"I'll take care o' them," said Ike, swinging the fiery, half-broken bronchos onto the trail. "They'd ought to do a little better than that, I judge." And they did; for, when the buckboard drew up at the Spruce Creek Stopping Place Ike remarked to Bill Lee, who stood in his usual position leaning against the door: "Two hours from Big River, and not much the worse, I guess."
Bill's welcome of Shock was almost effusive in its heartiness, but Ike cut him short.