Page:Helen Hunt--Ramona.djvu/277

Rh around her, he drew her to his breast, with the first feeling of joy he had experienced.

“I wish we could live here always,” cried Ramona.

“Would Majella be content?” said Alessandro.

“Very,” she answered.

He sighed. “There would not be land enough, to live here,” he said. “If there were, I too would like to stay here till I died, Majella, and never see the face of a white man again!” Already the instinct of the hunted and wounded animal to seek hiding, was striving in Alessandro's blood. “But there would be no food. We could not live here.” Ramona's exclamation had set Alessandro to thinking, however. “Would Majella be content to stay here three days now?” he asked. “There is grass enough for the horses for that time. We should be very safe here; and I fear very much we should not be safe on any road. I think, Majella, the Señora will send men after Baba.”

“Baba!” cried Ramona, aghast at the idea. “My own horse! She would not dare to call it stealing a horse, to take my own Baba!” But even as she spoke, her heart misgave her. The Señora would dare anything; would misrepresent anything; only too well Ramona knew what the very mention of the phrase “horse-stealing” meant all through the country. She looked piteously at Alessandro. He read her thoughts.

“Yes, that is it, Majella,” he said. “If she sent men after Baba, there is no knowing what they might do. It would not do any good for you to say he was yours. They would not believe you; and they might take me too, if the Señora had told them to, and put me into Ventura jail.”

“She's just wicked enough to do it!” cried Ramona. “Let us not stir out of this spot, Alessandro,—not for a week! Couldn't we stay a week? By that time she would have given over looking for us.”