“Needn’t try to make out I’m a baby!” snapped Ashton.
“Leave your rod here,” went on Blake, disregarding the other’s irascibility. “I’ll take the level. It may enable us to see the bottom of the cañon.”
He started on up the slope beside his wife’s pony. Ashton was somewhat mollified when he saw Isobel linger for him to walk beside her horse. She was carrying the baby, who, regardless of scenic attractions, had fallen asleep during the long climb from the lower mesa. The sight of the child clasped to her bosom awakened all that was highest in his nature. Concern over his wound had sobered her usual gay vivacity to a look of motherly tenderness.
“Do you know,” he murmured during a pause in their conversation, “you make me think of pictures of the Madonna!”
“Lafe!” she protested, blushing and as quickly paling. “You should not say such a thing. It is lovely––a beautiful thing to tell me; but––but I do not deserve it!” 253
“Madonna!––my Madonna!” he murmured in ardent adoration.
“Oh, please! when I’ve asked you not to!” she implored. “It is not right! I––I am not!––” Tears glistened in her soft eyes. She bent over to suppress a sob that might have awakened the sleeping infant.
Ashton gazed up at her, wonder and contrition mingling with his deepening adoration. “Forgive me, Miss Chuckie! But I meant it––I feel it! I never before felt this way towards any girl!... I know I have no right to say anything now. I am a pennyless adventurer, a disgraced, disinherited son, a mere cowpuncher apprentice; but if, by next spring, I shall have––”
“Oh, see. They’re getting such a long way ahead of us!” exclaimed the girl, urging her pony to a faster gait.
The animal started forward with a suddenness that left Ashton behind. He made no effort to regain his position beside the girl’s stirrup. Instead, he lagged farther and farther in the rear, his face crimson with mortification and anger. As his chagrin deepened, his flush became almost feverish and there was a suggestion of wildness in his flashing eyes. It was as though his passion was intensifying some injury to his brain caused by the concussion of the bullet on his skull.