Page:RidersOfSilences - Max Brand.djvu/313

Rh breast. That he had abandoned as he had abandoned her.

What, then, was left for her? The horse of an outlaw for her to ride; the heart of an outlaw in her breast.

She touched the white horse with the spurs and went at a reckless gallop, weaving back and forth among the boulders down the gorge. For she was riding away from the past.

The dawn came as she trotted out into a widening valley of the Old Crow. To maintain even that pace she had to use the spurs continually, for the white horse was deadly weary, and his head fell more and more. She decided to make a brief halt, at last, and in order to make a fire that would take the chill of the cold morning from her, she swung up to the edge of the woods. There, before she could dismount, she saw a man turn the shoulder of the slope. She drew the horse back deeper among the trees and waited.

He came with a halting step, reeling now and again, a big man, hatless, coatless, apparently at the last verge of exhaustion. Now his foot apparently struck a small rock, and he pitched to his face. It required a long struggle before he could regain his feet; and now he continued his journey at the same gait, only more uncertainly than ever, close and closer. There was something familiar now about the fellow's size, and something in the turn of his head. Suddenly she rode out, crying: "Wilbur!"

He swerved, saw the white horse, threw up his hands high above his head, and went backward,