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Updated: May 3, 2025
For a moment Rhoda lay motionless in abject fear, then, with a muffled cry of utter helplessness, a cry that would have driven a white man mad with pity, she slipped into unconsciousness. Kut-le walked on for a short distance to a horse. He put Rhoda in the saddle and fastened her there with a blanket.
Kut-le's mouth closed in the old way. "And still you shall marry me, Rhoda!" "I am a white woman, Kut-le. I can't marry an Indian. The difference is too great!" Kut-le turned abruptly and walked to the cañon edge, looking far out to the desert. Rhoda, panting and half hysterical, watched him.
You know that you might revert at any time." Kut-le turned on her fiercely. "Do you love me, Rhoda?" Rhoda stood silently, her cleft chin trembling, her deep gray eyes wide and grief-stricken. "Do you love me and better than you do DeWitt?" insisted the man, Suddenly Rhoda lifted her head proudly. "Yes," she said, "I do love you, better than any one in the world; but I cannot marry you!"
The ponies were ready and Rhoda swung herself to her saddle, with a thrill at the touch of the muscular little horse. And once more she rode after Kut-le with the mystery of the night trail before her. The sound of water falling, the cheep of wakening birds, the subtle odor of moisture-drenched soil roused Rhoda from her half sleep on the horse's back at the end of the night's journey.
But shortly Kut-le freed Rhoda's mouth, gave Alchise a swift look, and with infinite care the descent was begun. Kut-le did not like traveling in the daylight, for many reasons. Carefully, swiftly they moved up the cañon, always hugging the wall. Late in the afternoon they emerged on an open mesa.
For a moment Kut-le stared at Alchise; then, as if realizing the futility of speech, "Come!" he said, and ignoring the other Indians, he strode from the campos. Alchise and Cesca followed him, and outside the anxious Molly seized Rhoda's limp hand with a little cry of joy. Kut-le led the way to a quiet spot among the pines.
When Kut-le and Alchise go off on one of their hunts and Cesca goes to sleep, you and I will steal off and hide until night, and you will show me how to get home again. O Molly, I'll be very good to you if you will do this for me! Don't you see how foolish Kut-le is? I can never, never marry him! His ways are not my ways. My ways are not his! Always I will be white and he Indian.
But the young Apache seemed in no wise hurried or excited. "Our old friends seem to want something!" he commented with his boyish grin. "What are you going to do now?" asked Rhoda, with calm equal to the Apache's. "I can't carry you up this wall," suggested Kut-le. "Very well!" returned Rhoda pleasantly. "I am quite willing that you should leave me here." Kut-le's eyes glittered.
Rhoda, I wish I had had time to let you grow to it fully!" Rhoda stood rigidly. Molly, sensing trouble, hovered restlessly just out of earshot. "If you married DeWitt," Kut-le went on, "could you forget me? Forget the desert? Forget our days and nights? Forget my arms about you?" "Oh, no! No!" cried Rhoda. "You know that I shall love you always!" "And will DeWitt want what you offer him?"
Rhoda stirred restlessly, but Kut-le held her firmly and went on. "I tell you, if we're not to go mad, we've got to believe that great things come to us for a purpose. There is no human being who has loved who does not believe that love is the greatest thing that has been given to man. The man who has loved knows that the biggest things in the world have been done for the love of woman.
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