“I keep them grazing down in a gorge back of here. There's good grass and water.”
“A little. Lately I couldn't keep awake.”
“Good Lord! I should think not. You've had a time of it sitting here day and night nursing me, watching for the outlaws. Come, tell me all about it.”
“I want to know, anyway, just what you did--how you felt.”
“I can't remember very well,” she replied, simply. “We must have ridden forty miles that day we got away. You bled all the time. Toward evening you lay on your horse's neck. When we came to this place you fell out of the saddle. I dragged you in here and stopped your bleeding. I thought you'd die that night. But in the morning I had a little hope. I had forgotten the horses. But luckily they didn't stray far. I caught them and kept them down in the gorge. When your wounds closed and you began to breathe stronger I thought you'd get well quick. It was fever that put you back. You raved a lot, and that worried me, because I couldn't stop you. Anybody trailing us could have heard you a good ways. I don't know whether I was scared most then or when you were quiet, and it was so dark and lonely and still all around. Every day I put a stone in your hat.”
“I don't know. Maybe. I did all I knew how to do,” she replied. “You saved mine--more than my life.”
Their eyes met in a long gaze, and then their hands in a close clasp.
“Jennie, we're going to get away,” he said, with gladness. “I'll be well in a few days. You don't know how strong I am. We'll hide by day and travel by night. I can get you across the river.”
“Why,” he began, slowly, “that's as far as my thoughts ever got. It was pretty hard, I tell you, to assure myself of so much. It means your safety. You'll tell your story. You'll be sent to some village or town and taken care of until a relative or friend is notified.”
“And you?” she inquired, in a strange voice.
“Jennie, I'll go back to the brakes. I daren't show my face among respectable people. I'm an outlaw.”
“You're no criminal!” she declared, with deep passion.
“Jennie, on this border the little difference between an out law and a criminal doesn't count for much.”
“You won't go back among those terrible men? You, with your gentleness and sweetness--all that's good about you? Oh, Duane, don't--don't go!”