Judkins paused in his narrative, breathing heavily while he wiped his perspiring brow.
“Thet’s about all,” he concluded. “Lassiter left the meetin’-house an’ I hurried to catch up with him. He was bleedin’ from three gunshots, none of them much to bother him. An’ we come right up here. I found you layin’ in the hall, an’ I hed to work some over you.”
Jane Withersteen offered up no prayer for Dyer’s soul.
Lassiter’s step sounded in the hall—the familiar soft, silver-clinking step—and she heard it with thrilling new emotions in which was a vague joy in her very fear of him. The door opened, and she saw him, the old Lassiter, slow, easy, gentle, cool, yet not exactly the same Lassiter. She rose, and for a moment her eyes blurred and swam in tears.
“Are you—all—all right?” she asked, tremulously.
“I reckon.”
“Lassiter, I’ll ride away with you. Hide me till danger is past—till we are forgotten—then take me where you will. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God!”
He kissed her hand with the quaint grace and courtesy that came to him in rare moments.
“Black Star an’ Night are ready,” he said, simply.
His quiet mention of the black racers spurred Jane to action. Hurrying to her room, she changed to her rider’s suit, packed her jewelry, and the gold that was left, and all the woman’s apparel for which there was space in the saddle-bags, and then returned to the hall. Black Star stamped his iron-shod hoofs and tossed his beautiful head, and eyed her with knowing eyes.