Page:Helen Hunt--Ramona.djvu/291

Rh they were riding slowly along between low, wooded hills, they suddenly came to an opening, a green, marshy place, with a little thread of trickling water, at which their horses stopped, and drank thirstily; and Ramona, looking ahead, saw lights twinkling in the distance. “Lights, Alessandro, lights!” she exclaimed, pointing to them.

“Yes, Majella,” he replied, “it is Temecula,” and springing off his pony he came to her side, and putting both his hands on hers, said: “I have been thinking, for a long way back, Carita, what is to be done here. I do not know. What does Majella think will be wise? If men have been sent out to pursue us, they may be at Hartsel's. His store is the place where everybody stops, everybody goes. I dare not have you go there, Majella; yet I must go. The only way I can get any money is from Mr. Hartsel.”

“I must wait somewhere while you go!” said Ramona, her heart beating as she gazed ahead into the blackness of the great plain. It looked vast as the sea. “That is the only safe thing, Alessandro.”

“I think so too,” he said; “but, oh, I am afraid for you; and will not you be afraid?”

“Yes,” she replied, “I am afraid. But it is not so dangerous as the other.”

“If anything were to happen to me, and I could not come back to you, Majella, if you give Baba his reins he will take you safe home,—he and Capitan.”

Ramona shrieked aloud. She had not thought of this possibility. Alessandro had thought of everything. “What could happen?” she cried.

“I mean if the men were there, and if they took me for stealing the horse,” he said.

“But you would not have the horse with you,” she said. “How could they take you?”