pace. The girl was a rod or more ahead, and just vanishing behind a clump of sage-brush. She vanished, and he stopped for an instant, and looked about him on the desolation; and a great loneliness settled upon him like a frenzy. He was glad to see the girl riding back toward him with a smile of good fellowship on her face.
"What's the matter?" she called. "Come on! There's water in the valley."
The sound of water was good; and life seemed suddenly good for no reason whatever but that the morning was bright, and the sky was wide, and there was water in the valley. He rode forward, keeping close beside her now, and in a moment there gleamed below in the hot sunshine the shining of a sparkling stream.
"You seem to be running away from some one," he explained. "I thought you wanted to get rid of me, and I would give you a chance."
She looked at him surprised.
"I am running away," she said, "but not from you."
"From whom, then, may I ask? It might be convenient to know, if we are to travel in the same company."
She looked at him keenly.
"Who are you, and where do you belong?"
CHAPTER IV
THE TWO FUGITIVES
"I'm not anybody in particular," he answered, "and I'm not just sure where I belong. I live in Pennsylvania, but I didn't seem to belong there exactly, at least not just now, and so I came out here to see if I belonged anywhere else. I concluded yesterday that I didn't. At least, not until I came in sight of you. But I suspect I am running away myself. In fact, that is just what I am doing, running away from a woman!"
He looked at her with his honest hazel eyes, and she liked him. She felt he was telling her the truth, but it seemed to be a truth he was just finding out for himself as he talked.
"Why do you run away from a woman? How could a woman hurt you? Can she shoot?"
He flashed her a look of amusement and pain mingled.
"She uses other weapons," he said. "Her words are darts, and her looks are swords."
"What a queer woman! Does she ride well?"
"Yes, in an automobile!"
"What is that?" She asked the question shyly as if she feared he might laugh again; and he looked down, and perceived that he was talking far above her. In fact, he was talking to himself more than to the girl.
There was a bitter pleasure in speaking of his lost lady to this wild creature who almost seemed of another kind, more like an intelligent bird or flower.
"An automobile is a carriage that moves about without horses," he answered her gravely. "It moves by machinery."
"I should not like it," said the girl decidedly. "Horses are better than machines. I saw a machine once. It was to cut wheat. It made a noise, and did not go fast. It frightened me."
"But automobiles go very fast, faster than any horses And they do not all make a noise."
The girl looked around apprehensively.
"My horse can go very fast. You do not know how fast. If you see her coming, I will change horses with you. You must ride to the nearest bench and over, and then turn backward on your tracks. She will never find you that way. And I am not afraid of a woman."
The man broke into a hearty laugh, loud and long. He laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks; and the girl, offended, rode haughtily beside him. Then all in a moment he grew quite grave.
"Excuse me," he said; "I am not laughing at you now, though it looks that way. I am laughing out of the bitterness of my soul at the picture you put before me. Although I am running away from her, the lady will not come out in her automobile to look for me. She does not want me!"
"She does not want you! And yet you ran away from her?"
"That's exactly it," he said. "You see, I wanted her!"
"Oh!" She gave a sharp, quick gasp of intelligence, and was silent. After a full minute she rode quite close to his horse, and laid her small brown hand on the animal's mane.
"I am sorry," she said simply.
"Thank you," he answered. "I'm sure I don't know why I told you. I never told any one before."
There was a long silence between them. The man seemed to have forgotten her as he rode with his eyes upon his horse's neck, and his thoughts apparently far away.
At last the girl said softly, as if she were rendering return for the confidence given her, "I ran away from a man."
The man lifted his eyes courteously, questioningly, and waited.
"He is big and dark and handsome. He shoots to kill. He killed my brother. I hate him. He wants me, and I ran away from him. But he is a coward. I frightened him away. He is afraid of dead men that he has killed."
The young man gave his attention now to the extraordinary story which the girl told as if it were a common occurrence.
"But where are your people, your family and friends? Why do they not send the man away?"
"They're all back there in the sand," she said with a sad little flicker of a smile and a gesture that told of tragedy. "I said the prayer over them. Mother always wanted it when we died. There wasn't anybody left but me. I said it, and then I came away. It was cold moonlight, and there were noises. The horse was afraid. But I said it. Do you suppose it will do any good?"
She fastened her eyes upon the young man with her last words as if demanding an answer. The color came up to his cheeks. He felt embarrassed at such a question before her trouble.
"Why, I should think it ought to," he stammered. "Of course it will," he added with more confident comfort.
"Did you ever say the prayer?"
"Why,—I—yes, I believe I have," he answered somewhat uncertainly.
"Did it do any good?" She hung upon his words.
"Why, I—believe—yes, I suppose it did. That is, praying is always a good thing. The fact is, it's a long time since I've tried it. But of course it's all right."
A curious topic for conversation between a young man and woman on a ride through the wilderness. The man had never thought about prayer for so many minutes consecutively in the whole of his life; at least, not since the days when his nurse tried to teach him "Now I lay me."
"Why don't you try it about the lady?" asked the girl suddenly.
"Well, the fact is, I never thought of it."
"Don't you believe it will do any good?"
"Well, I suppose it might."
"Then let's
