“That is a radical theory, Miss Elliott,” said Burleson, amused. “What about the Arab and his loving steed?”
“That is not a legend for people who know horses,” she replied, still smiling. “The love is all on our side. You know horses, Mr. Burleson. Is it not the truth—the naked truth, stripped of poetry and freed from tradition?”
“Why strip poetry from anything?” he asked, laughing.
She rode on in silence for a while, the bright smile fading from lips and eyes.
“Oh, you are quite right,” she said; “let us leave what romance there may be in the world. My horse loves me like a dog. I am very happy to believe it, Mr. Burleson.”
From the luminous shadow of her sombrero she looked out across the stretch of marsh, where from unseen pools the wild-duck were rising, disturbed by the sound of their approach. And now the snipe began to dart skyward from under their horses’ feet, filling the noon silence with their harsh “squak! squak!”
“It’s along here somewhere,” said Burleson, leaning forward in his saddle to scan the swale-grass. A moment later he said, “Look there, Miss Elliott!”
In the tall, blanched grasses a velvety black space marked the ashes of a fire, which had burned in a semi-circle, then westward to the water’s edge.
“You see,” he said, “it was started to sweep the vlaie to the pine timber. The wind changed, and held it until the fire was quenched at the shore.”
“I see,” she said.