Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/19

Rh without the walls of the gray prison down by the junction. Almost within hearing of the townspeople who passed up and down, to and from the mineral springs that gushed from the rocks at the entrance to the great cañon, he had told her the secret of his heart. The color, coming to her face the while she heard the tale, told him that she was listening. When they had come to the corner of the wall, one step beyond which would bring them into full view of the Warden's residence, he had pressed her for an answer. She could find no voice to answer, but put out her hand as if she would say good-by. He took it, and the touch of it told him all he wished to know. Now he grew so glad, thinking it all over, that he clasped his hands together as a girl would do, and the rifle, slipping from his lap, shot down into the river that ran beside the track. The door at his back, and next the cañon wall, was closed and barred. The opposite door, overlooking the little river, was thrown wide open, and to the messenger sitting there came the splash of water and the smell of pine.

He remembered that the agent, running