Page:The New Penelope.djvu/214

 several hours. Do not indulge in apprehensions. In the morning we shall find him: it is almost daylight now."

He pointed to a faint light along the eastern horizon; but her eyes were blinded with tears.

"It is not like my father to leave me so long—at such a time, too! He would not care for his horses, nor for anything but me. O, can he have perished!"

She spoke as though the awful significance of her loneliness had just dawned upon her. Randolph, from whom the thought had never been absent from the moment he saw the pillar of flame shooting up over the Traveler's Rest, was startled by the suddenness of her anguish; and an expression of profound grief came over his face, noticeable even to her inattentive eyes, and which comforted her by its sympathy, even in the midst of her alarm and distress.

The day had dawned when Anne Matheny lifted her tear-swollen face from her knees, and looked upon the smoking ruins of Wilson's Bar. It was but a blackened heap of rubbish; yet somewhere in its midst, she felt assured, were buried the charred remains of her father. Each moment that he came not deepened her conviction, until at last her companion ceased his efforts to inspire hope, and accepted her belief as his own. Then, with the inconsistency of sorrow, she violently repudiated the suspicion of her father's death, and besought him piteously to seek and bring him to her side.

It was while obeying this last command that Gentleman Bill encountered Kentuck, who, after the confusion of the fire was over, was, like himself, looking for Matheny. When they had consulted together, the two returned to the place where Anne was awaiting them.

"There is one request I have to make, Kentuck: which is, that you will not inform Miss Matheny of the enmity of her father toward my father and myself. It would only distress her. Besides, I should like to befriend her, poor girl! and I could not, if she looked upon me with her father's eyes."