Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/102

90 "How best to break the news to poor McAlaster was a question over which I pondered on my way back to the camp. He was strong and sensible. He had seen many a comrade pulled out of a wreck mangled almost beyond recognition. He had been in more than one Indian fight, but he had never lain helpless upon a stretcher and listened to a tale such as I might tell, and I would not tell it. I'd lie first and so I did. And while I framed a story of how Wakalona had gone that very day to visit a neighboring camp, the poor Princess wandered over the prairie. All night she walked the trackless wilds and when the stars paled, laid down upon the damp earth to sleep. She knew that she was expected to die, that she ought to die, but she shunned death; not from any dread of it but for the love of life. No doubt she fully intended to die, but she would put the thought of it by for a little longer and dream of the pale-faced brave. Ah, he might love her still, who could tell, for the white people were so strange. She slept and doubtless dreamed of the little field, of her father, of the twilight time and of the sweet