A dull tattoo of hoofs along the halted column, nearer, nearer, clattering toward them from the front, and:
“Good-by!” she sobbed; “they’re coming for me! Oh—do you love me? Do you? Life was so dark and dreadful without you! I—I never forgot—never, never! I——”
Her gloved hands crept higher around the neck of the man who held her crushed in his arms.
“If I return,” she sighed, “will you love me? Don’t—don’t look at me that way. I will return—I promise. I love you so! I love you!”
Their lips clung for a second in the darkness, then she swung her horse, tearing herself free of his arms; and, bared head lifted to the skies, she turned south, riding all alone out into the starlit waste.
THE END
OTHER BOOKS
BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
Mr. Chambers is unquestionably the most popular of American novelists to-day. He is the author of some thirty books of extraordinary variety in fiction. He was born in New York, and studied in the studios of Paris to become an artist. While working at painting he took up writing as a pastime, and had such immediate success that he soon gave up art and turned to literature as his life work. Always, as a part of this interest, he has studied and worked in the field of natural history, so that to-day he is something of an authority on birds and butterflies, a confirmed fisherman, and a good shot. All these qualities—the study of art, the experience with nature, both in the line of sport and as an entomologist—have put their stamp upon his work, as will be seen by a glance at his books, for only a few of which there is space here available.
THE FIRING LINE