Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/376

 "I wish he had it," said she, looking anxiously over the prairie.

She stood on her knees, looking still; but Texas had passed over the knoll and out of sight. Uncle Boley smiled. There was another knoll beyond, and another, and onward to the horizon, like the swells of a peaceful sea.

"I wish he had it," she said again, slowly, her voice very sad and low, as if she whispered her wish after him to find him on his lonely way.

"Well, if I was as young as I was sixty years ago I'd hop a horse and take it to him. But I ain't; I ain't been on a horse no tellin' when."

Sallie was standing, looking away into the hazy south, straining forward a little, her lips open, her breath coming fast.

"How long has he been gone, Uncle Boley?"

"Oh, fifteen or twenty minutes."

"He can't be very far away yet."

"No, I don't reckon he's so fur a horse couldn't ketch him."

"Why, I believe—I do—I do see him!"

"Sure enough!" said Uncle Boley, feigning great surprise. "Well, darn that feller's slow shanks! he ain't went more'n a mile."

"Do you suppose he'd think—if I went, do you suppose—"

"No tellin'," Uncle Boley replied gravely, his