"The time we thought she
spent to put this on she's been--"
He choked over the words, and sank into a chair, face convulsed, hands
shaking, weak in the grip of a grief that he had never before known.
Suddenly he flung the dress into the fire. His wife fell to the floor in
a dead faint. Then the desert-hawk showed his claws. His hands tore at
the close scarf round his throat as if to liberate a fury that was
stifling him; his face lost all semblance to anything human. He began to
howl, to rave, to curse; and his father circled him with iron arm and
dragged him from the room.
The children were whimpering, the wives lamenting. The quiet men
searched the house and yard and corrals and fields. But they found no
sign of Mescal. After long hours the excitement subsided and all sought
their beds.
Morning disclosed the facts of Mescal's flight. She had dressed for the
trail; a knapsack was missing and food enough to fill it; Wolf was gone;
Noddle was not in his corral; the peon slave had not slept in his shack;
there were moccasin-tracks and burro-tracks and dog-tracks in the sand at
the river crossing, and one of the boats was gone.
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