"How old are you, Estrella?" he repeated again.
"Twenty-one," she gasped finally.
"Ah!" said he.
He stood for a moment in deep thought, then began methodically,
without haste, to cut loose the thongs that bound the two
together.
When the man and the woman were quite freed, he stood for a
moment, the knife in his hand, looking down on them. Then he
swung himself into the saddle and rode away, straight down the
narrow arroyo, out beyond its lower widening, into the vast
plains the hither side of the Chiricahuas. The alkali dust was
snatched by the wind from beneath his horse's feet. Smaller and
smaller he dwindled, rising and falling, rising and falling in
the monotonous cow-pony's lope. The heat shimmer veiled him for
a moment, but he reappeared. A mirage concealed him, but he
emerged on the other side of it. Then suddenly he was gone. The
desert had swallowed him up.
End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White
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