She sat straight and proudly in her man's saddle, and tried to make him
feel that she was worthy of respect. She had tried to show him this when
she had shot the bird. Now she recognized that there was a fine something,
higher than shooting or prowess of any kind, which would command respect.
It was something she felt belonged to her, yet she was not sure she
commanded it. What did she lack, and how could she secure it?
He watched her quiet, thoughtful face, and the lady of his former troubled
thoughts was as utterly forgotten by him as if she had never existed. He
was unconsciously absorbed in the study of eye and lip and brow. His eyes
were growing accustomed to the form and feature of this girl beside him,
and he took pleasure in watching her.
They stopped for lunch in a coulee under a pretty cluster of cedar-trees a
little back from the trail, where they might look over the way they had
come and be warned against pursuers. About three o'clock they reached a
town. Here the railroad came directly from Malta, but there was but one
train a day each way.
The man went to the public stopping-place and asked for a room, and boldly
demanded a private place for his "sister" to rest for a while. "She is my
little sister," he told himself in excuse for the word. "She is my sister
to care for. That is, if she were my sister, this is what I should want
some good man to do for her."
He smiled as he went on his way after leaving the girl to rest.
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