gesture, said, "Hol' on; I'll come right back," and slipped away,
the mere shadow of a coy and flying nymph in the moonlight, until she
reached the house.
Here she not only procured food and whiskey, but added a long
dust-coat and hat of her father's to her burden. They would serve
as a disguise for him and hide that heroic figure, which she
thought everybody must now know as she did. Then she rejoined him
breathlessly. But he put the food and whiskey aside.
"Listen," he said; "I've turned the hoss into your corral. You'll find
him there in the morning, and no one will know but that he got lost
and joined the other hosses."
Then she burst out. "But you--_you_--what will become of you? You'll
be ketched!"
"I'll manage to get away," he said in a low voice, "ef--ef"--
"Ef what?" she said tremblingly.
"Ef you'll put the heart in me again,--as you did!" he gasped.
She tried to laugh--to move away. She could do neither. Suddenly he
caught her in his arms, with a long kiss, which she returned again and
again. Then they stood embraced as they had embraced two days before,
but no longer the same. For the cool, lazy Salomy Jane had been
transformed into another woman--a passionate, clinging savage. Perhaps
something of her father's blood had surged within her at that supreme
moment. The man stood erect and determined.
"Wot's your name?" she whispered quickly. It was a woman's quickest
way of defining her feelings.
"Dart."
"Yer first name?"
"Jack."
"Let me go now, Jack. Lie low in the woods till to-morrow sunup. I'll
come again."
He released her. Yet she lingered a moment. "Put on those things," she
said, with a sudden happy flash of eyes and teeth, "and lie close till
I come." And then she sped away home.
But midway up the distance she felt her feet going slower, and
something at her heartstrings seemed to be pulling her back. She
stopped, turned, and glanced to where he had been standing. Had she
seen him then, she might have returned. But he had disappeared. She
gave her first sigh, and then ran quickly again. It must be nearly ten
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