The girl lay
down in a maze of wonder, but was too weary with the long ride to keep
awake and think about it.
They slept, the two travellers, a sound and dreamless sleep, wherein
seemed peace and moonlight, and a forgetting of sorrows.
Early the next morning the girl awoke. The woman by her side was already
stirring. There was breakfast to get for the men. The woman asked her a
few questions about her journey.
"He's your brother, ain't he, dearie?" asked the woman as she was about to
leave the room.
"No," said the girl.
"O," said the woman, puzzled, "then you and he's goin' to be married in
the town."
"O, no!" said the girl with scarlet cheeks, thinking of the lady in the
automobile.
"Not goin' to be married, dearie? Now that's too bad. Ain't he any kind of
relation to you? Not an uncle nor cousin nor nothin'?"
"No."
"Then how be's you travellin' lone with him? It don't seem just right.
You's a sweet, good girl; an' he's a fine man. But harm's come to more'n
one. Where'd you take up with each other? Be he a neighbor? He looks like
a man from way off, not hereabouts. You sure he ain't deceivin' you,
dearie?"
The girl flashed her eyes in answer.
"Yes, I'm sure. He's a good man. He prays to our Father. No, he's not a
neighbor, nor an uncle, nor a cousin. He's just a man that got lost. We
were both lost on the prairie in the night; and he's from the East, and
got lost from his party of hunters.
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