Argosy All-Story Weekly, February 5, 1921 — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

848 She shrugged her slim shoulders and her quick color rose. ‘What nonsense! Why do you feel that I must be guarded and watched like this? I have been riding most of the day with—with—Jack, and I have a little er- rand of my own now.” Geraldine had no errand. She had _ grown tired of waiting fpr Billie to return and her woman’s instinct drove her out to meet him. She wantéd to be sure that he had come from the Desmond place, and now that she had met him on the way and her surmise was- proven correct, she was angry and annoyed. He had been riding with the girl who yesterday would have seen her broken to pieces by a mad horse. . ‘Please let me pass,” she said, trying 10 subdue the anger in her voice. ‘“‘I am gvoing to see your friend—---who wished to teach me to ride yesterday. 1! have a question to ask her.” “You won’t find her there,” he answered gravely, but you can go on if you want to. Vl! follow along.” “Of course if she isn’t there’’—-she wheeled her horse pettishly; she felt ridic- ulous, yet strangely happy too. It was absurd that there should be a difference between this man and the other who had been her companion that day—-but there was a difference, tremendous and unmis- takable. For a few yards they were silent, trying to collect their natural forces—to appear indifferent to each other when the magnetism of their thought drew their eyes irresistibly together. ‘These trails ain’t any too sale after nightfall unless you know ’em well,” Bil- lie said quietly. “It’s easy to get lost, and that’s a strange horse you're ridin’. He might carry you off somewheres and you'd have trouble findin’ th’ way back.” ‘Qh, I shall soon find my way about,” she returned lightly. ‘Your friend Jack has been teaching me things to-day. | can throw a rope quite nicely. He said so himself.”’ She laughed; anger begin- ning to pass. And then added shyly: ‘‘ It was very good of you to find this horse for me. She js a darling.”’ They could see the lights of the ranch ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY, house a mile or so away, blinking steadily through the gathering dusk. It gave Billie ‘a comforted, happy feeling to see those lights waiting for them and to think of Jarrow and Jack and Mrs. Moffatt waiting, too. He could hardly remember the time when they thad not been there, and it was impossible to picture what it would be like to return to the house, dark and empty as it used to be. “Do you know,” said Geraldine, as though she read his thoughts, “ that little house is beginning to seem like home to me.” She could not guess the Happiness her words brought to him. ‘It seemed so lone- ly Just at first, desolate and poor and barren, but now I am beginning to see that it is all futl of life. Life is everywhere. Kiven these silent, gray old rocks could speak if they would.”” She smiled at her vagrant fancy. ‘“] like to hear you say that,” he said simply. “I always knew you’d find it out if you stayed here long enough. God help the man or woman who can’t hear the voice of the silent places, for if you once find it you don’t need to be lonely again— never Jonesome for anything or anybody again!” “Is it true?” she questioned wistfully and iell to thinking. The face of the young officer of the photograph came to her ‘ife- like and a Jittle reproachful. The time had been when to think of him meant loneliness intolerable and acute. She found that passing and wondered at the change. Yet she thought of him as often and as tenderly as before, only now the poignancy of re- yret was no more. The young officer was a part of the old life, growing fainter each day; the life once so important but now miraculously dropping its small shams and pretenses one by one, as she came into contact with the fundamentals of this new existence. She did not ask herself wherein the root of! this reversal was hidden. She was content with the happiness that radiated the autumn night closing in about them. She was young; the world was good after all; presently there would be food and bed, for she was healthily hungry and tired. When sleep cans thye sesviiaet Bao