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"The river is farther away now, but I want you still," he said. There was frost in the valley when one clear morning Alton lay partly dressed in a big chair beside the stove at Somasco ranch.
Then he stooped and bent over a little depression in the pebbles, and when he rose again his face was impassive. "The water has risen since last night, but I'm not sure that accounts for it," he said. "The bank slopes a little, but we pulled most of her out." "I think we pulled the whole of her clear," said Seaforth quietly. Alton stood silent for almost a minute with his right hand clenched.
The rancher nodded, and Alton got a tighter grip on the bridle. Then the Cayuse rose upright with fore-hoofs lifted, and the man's arm was drawn back to strike. The hoofs came down harmlessly, but the fist got home, and for a moment or two there was a swaying and plunging of man and beast amidst the hurled-up snow.
"Here are the letters Mrs. Neilson gave me at the post-office, too." Alton took the letters, and his face grew a trifle grim under the flickering light of the lantern as he thrust them crumpled into his pocket. "From England, and they will keep," he said. "There's nobody I'm anxious to hear from in that country. Now we'll go on again, Charley."
Alton had lived simply in close touch with nature, and though he had read much, his thoughts had something of the pristine purity and vigour of the land he dwelt in, and were in a fashion musical; but now and then the girl venturing overfar chanced upon a chord that rang harsh and discordant, and shrinking a little recognized, she fancied, the undertone of primitive barbarity.
Alton turned with a little shiver, strode back to the fire, unrolled a piece of pork, a packet of green tea, and a little bag of sugar from a strip of hide. The piece of pork was very small, and a good deal of it apparently bad. Then he laughed curiously. "It seems to me that the sooner I can get south and put in my record the less hungry I'm likely to be," he said.
This part of the country is on fire, and they say the East is waking up to what is going on here in Illinois. I've got the newspapers here containing all the debates. You've got some good reading ahead of you. To-morrow's the last debate over at Alton." "We must go," I said quickly. "I wouldn't miss that for the world. We must go." And I was thinking, what better way to forget Isabel?
Then moved by an impulse swift and uncontrollable she bent a little farther and kissed him on the cheek. Alton said nothing, but opened his eyes and smiled at her, and then lay still. For a space of minutes the girl dare scarcely breathe. Everything, she had been told, depended upon the sick man sleeping, and now he was very quiet. Then she raised her head and glanced at him.
A tall, bronzed man, wiping the sweat from his bald head, came in just as Jonas announced, "The carriage, Mr. Secretary." "Come along, Alton," said Enoch. "We'll talk your model coal mine as we go." It was six o'clock when Enoch appeared again in his office. His linen suit was wrinkled and sweat stained between the shoulders. He tossed his hat on a chair.
It wasn't a nice thing to tell you," he said. Alton glanced at him with grave sympathy, and then stared at the fire. "And what became of her? I saw her picture once in a twenty-five cent album," he said. "A woman of that kind would know what she was about?" Seaforth smiled wryly. "I was not the only fool," he said. "When I'd flung away everything a richer man came along."
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