tongue, still oblivious to any
possible danger of surprise. He spoke aloud, for company:

"She wouldn't have wanted me to look at her--she couldn't have looked
natural. Glad I didn't. Great Scott! but that was a first-rate
prayer! Wouldn't have thought after thirty years I could have done so
well. And it was all there, everything was in them words! If she knew
what I was doing, she couldn't have asked nothing more, for I reckon
she wouldn't expect a man like ME to ask no favors for that
white-livered cowardly second-husband of hers. I put in all my plea for
the little girl. Dinged if I understand how I come to be so
intelligent and handy at what's all new business to me! I just says,
'O God, take care of the little girl,'--just them words." He rose with
an air of great content and went around to the front in search of
provisions. Presently he spoke aloud:

"And as I ain't asked nothing for myself since I run off from home I
guess God won't mind putting the little girl on my expense-account."

CHAPTER V

A NEW ROBINSON CRUSOE

It came over him with disconcerting suddenness that he had lost a great
deal of time, and that every moment spent in the covered wagon was
fraught with imminent danger. It was not in his mind that the hand of
highwaymen might discover his hiding-place. Knowing them as he did, he
was sure they would not come so far from their haunts or from the Sante
Fe train in pursuit of him. But the Indians roamed the Panhandle, as
much at home there as in their reservations--and here they were much
more dangerous. Had no savage eye discerned that wagon during the
brilliant August day? Might it be that even while he slept at the feet
of the dead woman, a feathered head had slipped under the canvas side,
a red face had bent over him?

It was a disquieting fancy. Willock told himself that, had such been
the case, his scalp-lock would not still adorn his own person; for all
that, he was eager to be gone. Instead of eating in the wagon, he
wrapped up some food in a bread-cloth, placed this with a few other
articles in a tarpaulin--among them, powder and shot--and, having
lifted the keg of water to one shoulder, and the rope-bound tarpaulin
to the other, he left the wagon with a loaded gun in his hand.

Twilight had faded to starlight and the mountain range stood blackly
defined against the glittering stars. It was easy to find his way, for
on the level sands there were no impediments, an