Page:Helen Hunt--Ramona.djvu/432

426 the horse's hoofs on the ground before she saw him. “Why comes he riding like that?” she thought, and ran to meet him. As he drew near, she saw to her surprise that he was riding a new horse. “Why, Alessandro!” she cried. “What horse is this?”

He looked at her bewilderedly, then at the horse. True; it was not his own horse! He struck his hand on his forehead, endeavoring to collect his thoughts. “Where is my horse, then?” he said.

“My God! Alessandro,” cried Ramona. “Take the horse back instantly. They will say you stole it.”

“But I left my pony there in the corral,” he said. “They will know I did not mean to steal it. How could I ever have made the mistake? I recollect nothing, Majella. I must have had one of the sicknesses.”

Ramona's heart was cold with fear. Only too well she knew what summary punishment was dealt in that region to horse-thieves. “Oh, let me take it back, dear!” she cried, “Let me go down with it. They will believe me.”

“Majella!” he exclaimed, “think you I would send you into the fold of the wolf? My wood-dove! It is in Jim Farrar's corral I left my pony. I was there last night, to see about his sheep-shearing in the autumn. And that is the last I know. I will ride back as soon as I have rested. I am heavy with sleep.”

Thinking it safer to let him sleep for an hour, as his brain was evidently still confused, Ramona assented to this, though a sense of danger oppressed her. Getting fresh hay from the corral, she with her own hands rubbed the horse down. It was a fine, powerful black horse; Alessandro had evidently urged him cruelly up the steep trail, for his sides were steaming, his nostrils white with foam. Tears stood in Ramona's eyes as she did what she could for him.