"Get going, then," said another voice, and two men, their faces muffled with handkerchiefs, bearing something that bulked their pockets oddly, slipped out of the door and fled noiselessly, like gliding shadows, down the track toward the cut.
Rosalind had been asleep in the rocker. A cool night breeze, laden with the strong, pungent aroma of sage, sent a shiver over her and she awoke, to see that the lights of Manti had vanished. An eerie lonesomeness had settled around her.
"Why, it must be nearly midnight!" she said. She got up, yawning, and stepped toward the door, wondering why Agatha had not called her. But Agatha had retired, resenting the girl's manner.
Almost to the door, Rosalind detected movement in the ghostly semi-light that flooded the plains between the porch and the picturesque spot, more than a mile away, on which Levins' cabin stood. She halted at the door and watched, and when the moving object resolved into a horse, loping swiftly, she strained her eyes toward it. At first it seemed to have no rider, but when it had approached to within a hundred yards of her, she gasped, leaped off the porch and ran toward the horse. An instant later she stood at the animal's head, voicing her astonishment.
"Why, it's Chuck Levins! Why on earth are you riding around at this hour of the night?"
"Sissy's sick. Maw wants you to please come an' see what you can do--if it ain't too much trouble."
"Trouble?" The girl laughed. "I should say not! Wait until I saddle my horse!"
She ran to the porch and stole silently into the house, emerging with a small medicine case, which she stuck into a pocket of her coat. Once before she had had occasion to use her simple remedies on Sissy--an illness as simple as her remedies; but she could feel something of Mrs. Levins' concern for her offspring, and--and it was an ideal night for a gallop over the plains.
It was almost midnight by the Levins' clock when she entered the cabin, and a quick diagnosis of her case with an immediate application of one of her remedies, brought results. At half past twelve Sissy was sleeping peacefully, and Chuck had dozed off, fully dressed, no doubt ready to re-enact his manly and heroic rôle upon call.
It was not until Rosalind was ready to go that Mrs. Levins apologized for her husband's rudeness to his guest.