The sun was
gone; one or two sad red shadows lay across the gray. Night would soon
be here, and he lay stiff-cold beneath the snow. Not dead: her heart
told her that imperiously from the first. But there was not one instant
to lose.
"I cannot wait for you, Uncle Bone. I must go alone."
"Debbil de step! I'll take yer 'cross fields ter Gentry's, an' ride on
myself."
"You could not find him. No one could find him but me."
Something possessed the girl, other than her common self. She pushed his
hand gently from the reins, and left him. Bone wrung his hands.
"'N' de guerrillas,--'n' de rest o' de incarnate debbils!"
She knew that. Dode was no heroine,--a miserable coward. There was not a
black stump of a tree by the road-side, nor the rustle of a squirrel in
the trees, that did not make her heart jump and throb against her
bodice. Her horse climbed the rocky path slowly. I told you the girl
thought her Helper was alive, and very near. She did to-night. She
thought He was beside her in this lonesome road, and knew she would be
safe. She felt as if she could take hold of His very hand. It grew
darker: the mountains of snow glowered wan like the dead kings in Hades;
the sweeps of dark forests whispered some broken mysterious word, as she
passed; sometimes, in a sudden opening, she could see on a far hill-side
the red fires of a camp.
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