They drove through a country of sagebrush hills. The moon came out and carpeted the slopes with silver lace. Deep within June was a born love of beauty as it found expression in this land of the Rockies. But to-night she did not taste the scent of the sage or see the veil of mist that had transformed the draws magically to fairy dells.
“Where you goin’?” she asked at last. “You said you’d take me to Dad.”
He laughed, slipped a strong arm round her shoulders, and drew her closer. “Found yore tongue at last, June girl, eh? We’re going home—to my place up in Brown’s Park.”
She made a perfunctory protest. It was, she knew, quite useless, and her heart was not in it. No words she used, no appeal she could make, would touch this man or change his intentions.
“You got no right to take me there. I’m not yore slave. I want to go to Dad.”
“Tha’s right,” he mocked. “I’m yore slave, June. What’s the use of fighting? I’m so set on you that one way or another I’m bound to have you.”
She bit her lip, to keep from weeping. In the silvery night, alone with him, miles from any other human being, she felt woefully helpless and forlorn. The years slipped away. She was a little child, and her heart was wailing for the mother whose body lay on the hillside near the deserted cabin in Brown’s Park. What could she do? How could she save herself from the evil shadow that would blot the sunshine from her life?
Somewhere, in that night of stars and scudding clouds, was God, she thought. He could save her if He would. But would He? Miracles did not happen nowadays. And why would He bother about her? She was such a trifle in the great scheme of things, only a poor ragged girl from the back country, the daughter of a convict, poor hill trash, as she had once heard a woman at Glenwood whisper. She was not of any account.
Yet prayers welled out in soundless sobs from a panic-stricken heart. “O God, I’m only a li’l’ girl, an’ I growed up without a mother. I’m right mean an’ sulky, but if you’ll save me this time from Jake Houck, I’ll make out to say my prayers regular an’ get religion first chance comes along,” she explained and promised, her small white face lifted to the vault where the God she knew about lived.
Drifts floated across the sky blown by currents from the northwest. They came in billows, one on top of another, till they had obscured most of the stars. The moon went into eclipse, reappeared, vanished behind the storm scud, and showed again.