Wasn't that his business? Wasn't he the one
to end it, not wait on her pleasure? Were all men so easily governed,
she wondered.

Looking ahead across the grassed bottom land, she saw that the train
had halted and the camp was pitched. She could see David's tall
stooping figure, moving with long strides between the tents and the
wagons. She laid a wager with herself that he would do certain things
and brought her horse to a walk that she might come upon him
noiselessly and watch. Of course he did them, built up her fire and
kindled it, arranged her skillets beside it and had a fresh pail of
water standing close by. It only remained for him to turn as he heard
the sound of her horse's hoofs and run to help her dismount. This, for
some reason, he did not do and she was forced to attract his attention
by saying in a loud voice:

"There was nothing to be seen. Not a sign of a wagon from here to the
horizon."

He looked up from his cooking and said: "Oh, you're back, Susan," and
returned to the pan of buffalo tallow.

This was a strange remissness in the slave and she was piqued.
Contrary to precedent it was her father who helped her off. She slid
into his arms laughing, trying to kiss him as she slipped down, then
standing with her hands on his shoulders told him of her ride. She was
very pretty just then, her hair loose on her sunburned brow, her face
all love and smiles. But David bent over his fire, did not raise his
eyes to the charming tableau, that had its own delightfulness to the
two participants, and that one of the participants intended should show
him how sweet Susan Gillespie could be when she wanted.

All of which trivial matter combined to the making of momentous matter,
momentous in the future for Susan and David. Shaken in her confidence
in the subjugation of her slave, Susan agreed to his suggestion to ride
to the bluffs after supper and see the plains under the full moon. So
salutary had been his momentary neglect of her that she went in a
chastened spirit, a tamed and gentle maiden. They had orders not to
pass out of sight of the twin fires whose light followed them like the
beams of two, watchful, unwinking eyes.

They rode across the bottom to where the bluffs rose, a broken bulwark.
That afternoon Susan had found a ravine up which they could pass. She
knew it by a dwarfed tree, a landmark in the naked country. The
moonlight lay white on the barrier indented with gulfs of darkness