for him
never once entered her thoughts. His work was on the firing line; and
had she not _once_ said that a life more or less did not matter? That
was before his life had become her life. That is, fear for him did not
enter her waking thoughts. It was different when she slept. Then the
uncurbed thoughts hovered like the face in the picture of "the Sleeping
Warrior." One night as she sat in the steamer chair, a cold wind came
down from the Pass. The cook explained it was because of the snow
slide that had filled up the canyon.

"Calamity," she called, "bring me out something to put round my
shoulders; don't bring a shawl: I hate shawls!"

And Calamity, perfectly naturally, brought out Wayland's coat. Eleanor
did not laugh; for she knew it was only since Calamity had stopped
roving the Black Hills that she had exchanged male attire for the
Indian woman's insignia of good conduct, a shawl. She waited till
Calamity had pattered down to the basement. Then, she slipped into the
coat with a queer little laugh that would have played havoc with
Wayland's resolutions, and running her hands up the long dangling
sleeve ends, lay back to a reverie that could hardly be called thought.
It was consciousness, delirious foolish consciousness, possible only to
youth; and the consciousness slipped into a drowse between sleeping and
waking. It was--where was it? In the shadow realms of wonderful dream
consciousness, his face, the face in "the Happy Warrior"; but not her
face: instead was the evil fellow seen that night in the storm on the
Rim Rocks clubbing his gun at Fordie's pinto pony through the mists;
only he wasn't clubbing it at Fordie; he was aiming at Wayland; and
there was the white horse. She wakened herself with her cry. That
happened to be the night Wayland had camped in the Desert arroyos.

One afternoon, Sheriff Flood had called to know if her father had come
back and what "he intended to do about it." Incidentally, he mentioned
that the Forest Ranger had gone through the Pass that led to the
Desert: there had been a snow slide; but he "guessed" the Ranger was
"too cute a mountain man to be caught." That night, she shivered as
she sat in the steamer chair; and she drew Wayland's coat around her;
but it was not to delirious thoughts. When she fell asleep, she saw
him lying on his face in the Desert; and she called him, and called
him, and never could reach him, and awakened herself with her own
calling.