Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/315

 She gave him her lips, simply, and the man went out into the sunset.

That night was the first Hilma had ever known in her years in the Big Country when the great dark did not come to sit down with her. She was alone, yes, but with a deep wellspring of love to flood her heart with happiness and make each ministering touch of her fingers a healing balm.

Morning brought Woolly Annie with her booming voice hailing from afar: "Here comes the nurse, an' the preacher which you need more 'll be trailin' 'long directly."

During two weeks Original Bill battled to free himself from a land of shadows. And in those two weeks history was made in the Big Country. The army of the Invasion recruited among the wild desert towns of the Southwest moved up from the south, launched itself into the range lands, smirched the smiling country with some cold murders and even prepared to lunge at Two Moons. But Uncle Alf, fiery evangel of his army of righteousness, and the more practical Red Agnew armed Two Moons and sent an avenging force out to meet the hired terrorizers. The fight and siege at T A