“Please thank her, Wah, and—” He could say no more. Slowly he turned his horse, and rode towards the hills.
Wah walked away, murmuring beneath his breath: “La, la, boom, boom, me poor bludder. He must habee hellee headache. La, la, boom, boom.”
Stephen soon reached the place on the trail where was situated the old deserted “Q” ranch. A rusty iron tank by the shanty bore the crudely painted sign: “Water, Cattle 10 cts. per head. Horses 25 cts.” Beside the tank, however, in what had evidently formerly been an empty bed, gushed a clear stream of water. Stephen smiled when he saw how nature had thwarted the primitive monopoly.
Dismounting, he lifted the saddle from his horse’s back. Then he deftly hobbled him, and left him to eat what grass there was by the rocky stream bed, within a radius which he could cover with his fore legs tied together. Stephen then seated himself on the ground, propped the saddle behind his back, and proceeded to light a pipe, and to think. All the events of the past few hours had come upon him with such rapidity that he had had no time for reflection.
Seated there in the open, beneath the vivid blue sky, with no sound but that of the softly, coolly running water near, all the scene of the accident loomed clearly before him, far more clearly than it had done in the morning when he had still been in the camp, and surrounded by the routine of life there. The very warmth of the sunlight, which should have made a man’s heart bound with the joy of living, merely added to the blackness of his mood.
He was very nervous, and smoked with quick, hard puffs. Once his pony started at something. The sound brought Loring to his feet, all of a quiver. He sat down again, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with an excited gesture. Gripping his hands together hard, he thought the situation over and over. The more he thought of it, the worse it seemed. This was not a case which could be called the result of negligence, or drifting. It came very close to crime, and he knew it. Stephen Loring was a man who, when he sat in judgment upon himself, was unflinching. He weakened only when it came to carrying out the sentence which the court imposed. He thought of Miss Cameron, as she had been on the ride which they had taken together; then of what she must think of him now. This brought a flush of shame to his cheeks.
Suddenly he recalled the note which Wah had brought to him, and he took it reverently from his blouse. It was the first time that he had ever seen her handwriting. His name was written upon the envelope in clear, decided letters, which coincided well with the character of the writer. Stephen looked at the writing, with an infinite tenderness softening the lines on his face. He started to tear open the envelope, then suddenly he stopped.
“I won’t,” he exclaimed, half aloud. “I will not read it until I am worthy to do so, or until I have a great need of it.” Reluctantly he slid the note back into his blouse. Then, coloring, he pushed it over to his left side. His heart seemed to beat more strongly, more manfully, for the companionship.
He had eaten no breakfast, and began to be conscious of a great hunger. He ate, down to the last crust, the pie which Wah had given to him. It was as good as its maker had claimed it to be.
There is nothing in the world equal to food for restoring self-respect, and Stephen, having eaten, began to see the world more normally. Tightening his belt, he took a long drink from the stream, then saddled “Muy Bueno” and started again on his way.