It seemed as though his piercing voice stirred her reason. She stared at him. Her face changed. Her lips parted and her hand, shaking like a leaf, covered them, clutched at them. The other hand waved before her as if to brush aside some haunting terror.
Neale held that gaze with all his power—dominant, masterful, masculine. He repeated what he had said.
Then it became a wonderful and terrible sight to watch her, to divine in some little way the dark and awful state of her mind. The lines, the tenseness, the shade, the age faded out of her face; the deep-set frown smoothed itself out of her brow and it became young. Neale saw those staring eyes fix upon his; he realized a dull, opaque blackness of horror, hideous veils let down over the windows of a soul, images of hell limned forever on a mind. Then that film, that unseeing cold thing, like the shade of sleep or of death, passed from her eyes. Now they suddenly were alive, great dark-violet gulfs, full of shadows, dilating, changing into exquisite and beautiful lights.
“I’m a white man!” he said, tensely. “You’re saved! The Indians are gone!”
She understood him. She realized the meaning of his words. Then, with a low, agonized, and broken cry she shut her eyes tight and reached blindly out with both hands; she screamed aloud. Shock claimed her again. Horror and fear convulsed her, and it must have been fear that was uppermost. She clutched Neale with fingers of steel, in a grip he could not have loosened without breaking her bones.
“Red, you saw—she was right in her mind for a moment—you saw?” burst out Neale.
“Shore I saw. She’s only scared now,” replied King. “It must hev been hell fer her.”
At this juncture Slingerland came riding up to them. “Did she come around?” he inquired, curiously gazing at the girl as she clung to Neale.
“Yes, for a moment,” replied Neale.
“Wal, thet’s good.... I caught up with Dillon. Told him. He was mighty glad we found her. Cussed his troopers some. Said he’d explain your absence, an’ we could send over fer anythin’.”