Westerfelt drew the blankets closer about him. The road had taken a sharp turn round the side of a little hill, and the breeze from the wide reach of level valley lands was keen and piercing. Bradley's volubility jarred on him. It brought an obnoxious person back, and roughly, into the warm memory of Harriet Floyd's presence, and gentle, selfless tenderness. He ground his teeth in agony. He had just been debating in his mind the possibility of his being, in consideration of his own mistakes, able to take the girl, in her new love, into his heart and hold her there forever, but if she loved Wambush, as, of course, she once did, might she not later love some other man—or might she not even think—remember—Wambush?
"Great God!" He uttered the words aloud, and Bradley turned upon him in surprise.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing," said Westerfelt; "my wound twinged just a little, that is all."
"I was driving too fast over these rocks anyway," said Bradley, solicitously.
The horse stopped at a clear mountain stream that leaped in a succession of waterfalls down the sheer hill-side into the valley. Bradley got out to loosen the bridle to allow the animal to drink, and stood with one foot on the shore and the other on a brown stone in the water. Try as he would, Westerfelt could not banish Harriet from his mind. Her sweet personality seemed to be trying to defend itself against the unworthy thoughts which fought for supremacy in his mind. He thought of her wonderful care of him in his illness; her unfailing tenderness and sympathy when he was suffering; her tears—yes, he was sure he had detected tears in her eyes one day when the doctor was giving him unusual pain in dressing his wound. Ah, how sweet that was to remember! and yet the same creature had loved a man no higher than Wambush; had even sobbed out a confession of her love in the arms of his father. Such was the woman, but he loved her with the first real love of his life.
The next day but one, Westerfelt, feeling sufficiently strong, was driven by Washburn down to the livery-stable, where he sat in the warm sunshine against the side of the house. While sitting there watching the roads which led down to the village from the mountains, he was surprised to see Peter Slogan ride up on his bony bay horse and alight.
"Howdy' do, John?" he said. "I wus jest passin' on my way home an' thought I'd halt an' ax about that cut o' yore'n."
"Oh, I'm doing pretty well, Peter," answered Westerfelt, as he extended his hand without rising. "But I didn't know that you ever got this far from home."
"Hain't once before, since I went to fight the Yanks," grinned Slogan. "Seems to me I've rid four hundred an' forty-two miles on that churndasher thar. My legs is one solid sore streak from my heels up, an' now it's beginnin' to attact my spine-bone. I'm too ol' an' stiff to bear down right in the stirrups, I reckon."