e."

"I can't. I will not wait alone. If you go, then I'll go too somehow....
It's twelve miles. You couldn't get there till midnight, and you
couldn't get back here with a wagon for another couple of hours
from that. It would be daylight then. I can't stay here alone. I'm
frightened, and I'm cold."

"Wait a minute," said Orlando.

He ran back to the dead horse, unloosed the saddle from its back,
detached from it a rain-coat strapped to the pommel, and brought it to
her.

"This will keep you warm," he said. "It isn't cold to-night. You only
feel cold because you're upset and nervous."

"I'm frightened," she answered; "frightened of everything. Listen! Don't
you hear something stirring--there!" She peered fearfully into the dusk
behind them.

"Probably," he answered. "There are lots of prairie dogs and things
about. The more you listen, the more you hear on the prairie, especially
at night."

There was silence for a moment, and then he added: "My broncho'll steer
straight for Slow Down Ranch, and that'll bring my men. You can be
quite sure there'll be a search-party out from Tralee, too, at the first
streak of dawn. You can't make the journey, so the only thing to be done
is to wait here. That coat will keep you from getting cold, and I'll cut
a lot of long grass and make you a bed here. Also, the grass is warm,
and I'll cover you with it and with pine branches."

"I can't lie down," she answered. "No, I can't; I'm afraid. It's all so
strange, and to-morrow, he--"

"There's nothing to be frightened about," he interrupted. "Nothing at
all, Louise."

It was the first time he had ever addressed her by name, and it made her
shiver with a new feeling. It seemed to tell a long, long story without
words.

"You must do what I ask you to do--whatever I ask you to do," he
repeated. "Will you?"

"Yes, anything you ask me I'll do," she answered, and then added
quickly, "For you won't ask me to do anything I don't want to do. That's
the difference. You understand, Orlando."

A few minutes later he had found a suitable place to make a kind of
bed of grass for her, and had prepared it, with his knife, cutting the
branches of small shrubs and grass and the scanty branches of the pine.
When it was finished, he came to her and said:

"It's all ready. Come and lie down, and I'll cover you up."

She got to her feet slowly, for she was in pain greater than she knew,
so absorbed was her mind in this new life suddenly enve