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The two horses, instinctively drawing close together, turned their tails to the driving flakes. Rina sat hunched in her saddle, as indifferent as a squat, clay image. "I will ride on," he said thickly. She gave no sign. He consulted his compass. "We have ridden due northwest all the way," he said. "Where are they heading for?" "Death River, I guess," she answered, pointing.
Afterward Mabyn dragged the bench a relic of the former tenant, and sole article of furniture they possessed outside the door; and sat upon it, smoking, yawning, looking across the lake with lack-lustre eyes. Rina having redd up the shack, came to the doorway, where she stood looking at him wistfully. Finally she hovered toward him and retreated; and her hands stole to her breast.
A tinge of gray had by this time been woven into the unrelieved blackness. Running toward the sound, he found a human form prone in the grass; and he saw it was a woman lying on her face. Grasping her shoulders, he rolled her over. It was Rina. A tiny hope sprang in his breast. Here at last was a clue. "Get up!" he said roughly. She made no answer.
She lowered her head to hide her stricken eyes from him. Suddenly she turned and fled through the trees. Garth was beginning to believe that Rina after all was not so different from her white sisters; if so, he thought she would come back. Natalie, who had overheard all that passed, said so too.
"'Certainly; it is my favourite. "I began to play, Rina to dance, and the banditti to applaud. She danced admirably. The more I looked at her, the more convinced I became that I had seen her before. "She was in the middle of a pirouette when the door opened, and the innkeeper entering, whispered something in the captain's ear. "'Ove sono? said the latter, quietly. 'Where are they?
But he was in no temper to take any delight in morning beauties; he ached in every bone and muscle as if he had been beaten with a club; and at the sight of the mounting sun, he bitterly reproached himself and Rina, for the lost hours. As for Charley, a glance at the boy showed that he was quite incapable of further travelling for the present.
"What do you know of their plans?" he demanded of Rina. She shook her head. "They not tell me moch," she said. "They t'ink I too friendly for you!" Little by little as they rode, the story was drawn painfully out. "Soon as Charley come to you, they get ready right away," said Rina. "They catch all horses, and keep them up coulée, and pack everyt'ing.
Exchanging his gun for the paddle, Garth hastened back to the mouth of the creek, pausing only to wave his hat reassuringly at Natalie, whom he could see reclining on her grassy couch. An essential part of his plan was yet to be effected; and he knew not how soon Rina might return.
She was longing mightily to sit beside him; but she did not dare. In a breed's wife it would have been highly presumptuous, and would very likely have been rewarded with a blow; but Rina had a dim notion that a white man's wife had the right to sit beside him still she was afraid.
They were watching him too; he presently sensed a pair of field-glasses in Grylls's hands. Garth laughed and obeying a sudden, ironical impulse, waved his hand. Grylls abruptly lowered the glass and walked away. Garth was still smiling, when all at once, without warning, Rina came around the corner of his shack and faced him point blank. The smile was fixed in astonishment; Rina was unperturbed.
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