“Only a year! Have I been gone only a year?”
“Yes, a year. But it's past now. Kiss me, Mescal. One kiss will pay for that long year, though it broke my heart.”
Shyly she raised her hands to his shoulders and put her lips to his. “Yes, you've found me, Jack, thank God! just in time!”
“Mescal! What's wrong? Aren't you well?”
“Pretty well. But if you had not come soon I should have starved.”
“Starved? Let me get my saddle-bags—I have bread and meat.”
“Wait. I'm not so hungry now. I mean very soon I should not have had any food at all.”
“But your peon—the dumb Indian? Surely he could find something to eat. What of him? Where is he?”
“My peon is dead. He has been dead for months, I don't know how many.”
“Dead! What was the matter with him?”