Later when he returned to Genie it was to say, simply, “My dear, as soon as I can find my burros we pack for the long trail.”
“No!” she exclaimed, with lighting eyes.
“Yes. I shall take you out to find you a home.”
“Honest Injun?” she blazed at him, springing erect.
“Genie, I would not tease about that. We know your uncle is dead. The time to go has come. We’ll start at sunrise.”
Forgotten were Genie’s dreams of yesterday! A day at her time of life meant change, growth, oblivion for what had been. With a cry of wondering delight she flung herself upon Adam, leaped and climbed to the great height of his face, and there, like a bird, she pecked at him with cool, sweet lips, and clung to him in an ecstasy.
“Don’t!... Still a child, Genie,” he said, huskily, as he disengaged himself from her wild embrace. He meant that she was not still a child. It amazed him and hurt him to see her radiance at the thought of leaving the desert oasis which had been home for so long. Fickleness of youth! Yesterday she had wanted to live there forever; to-day the enchantments of new life, people, places, called alluringly. It was what Adam had expected. It was what he wanted for her. How clear had been his vision of the future! How truly, the moment he had fought down his selfish desires, had he read her innocent heart! His own swelled with gladness, numbing out the pang. For him, some little meed of praise! Not little was it to have conquered self—not little was it to have builded the happiness of an orphan!
Adam’s burros had grown gray in their years of idle, contented life at the oasis. Like the road runners, they enjoyed the proximity of camp; and he found them shaggy and fat, half asleep while they grazed. He drove them back to the shade of the cottonwoods, where Genie, seeing this last and immutable proof of forthcoming departure, began to dance over the sand in wild glee.
“Genie, you’ll do well to save some of your nimbleness,” admonished Adam. “We’ll have a load. You’ve got to climb the mountain and walk till I can buy another burro.”
“Oh, Wanny, I’ll fly!” she cried.