Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/379

 a condor wheeling above the gray-green hilltops until it became a drifting black speck in the turquoise sky.

The glare of open light made his eyes ache. He remembered a certain sentence of Ganley's: "It's not what you'd call a white man's country." The thought of that brought his troubled gaze back to the woman at his side.

"Have you always been happy here?" he demanded, audaciously.

"Are we ever always happy?" she asked, after a silence.

"But do you expect to be happy, humanly happy, here?"

She shook her head, slowly, from side to side.

"Not now," she answered.

Again a mocking flame of hope shot through him. But he did not speak. Her hand lay on the embrasure beside him. He reached out his arm and quietly covered the white fingers with his own. His mournful glance met hers, and for the first time the full significance of her nearness came home to him. She drew back a little, frightened, and slowly raised her head. The touch of her hand on his had turned his very blood to fire.

"I love you," he said, without moving. She swayed a little beside the embrasure; but she did not speak. He reached out his unbandaged