The woman, until now bolt upright in the buckboard
seat, shrank nearer to the man. He felt against his sleeve the
delicate contact of her garment and thrilled to the touch. A
coyote barked sharply from a neighbouring eminence, then
trailed off into the long-drawn, shrill howl of his species.
"What was that?" she asked quickly, in a subdued voice.
"A coyote--one of them little wolves," he explained.
The horses' hoofs rang clear on a hardened bit of the alkali
crust, then dully as they encountered again the dust of the
plain. Vast, vague, mysterious in the silence of night, filled
with strange influences breathing through space like damp winds,
the desert took them to the heart of her great spaces.
"Buck," she whispered, a little tremblingly. It was the first
time she had spoken his name.
"What is it?" he asked, a new note in his voice.
But for a time she did not reply. Only the contact against his
sleeve increased by ever so little.
"Buck," she repeated, then all in a rush and with a sob, "Oh, I'm
afraid."
Tenderly the man drew her to him. Her head fell against his
shoulder and she hid her eyes.
"There, little girl," he reassured her, his big voice rich and
musical.
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