Ravines, with their still, eloquent darkness, are fearsome places for imaginative boys to pass alone. Hobgoblins--the very name sent chills up and down Bruce's spine--would be most apt to lurk in some such place, waiting, waiting to jump on his back! He broke and ran.
The stars came out, and a late moon found him trudging still. He limped and his sturdy shoulders sagged. He was tired, and, oh, so sleepy, but the prolonged howl of a wolf, coming from somewhere a long way off, kept him from dropping to the ground. Who would have believed that twenty-five miles was such a distance? He stopped short, and how hard his heart pumped blood! Stock-still and listening, he heard the clatter of hoofs coming down the road ahead of him. Who would be out this time of night but robbers? He looked about him; there was no place on the flat prairie to hide except a particularly dark ravine some little way back which had taken all his courage to go through without running.
Between robbers and hobgoblins there seemed small choice, but he chose robbers. With his fists clenched and the cold sweat on his forehead, he waited by the roadside for the dark rider, who was coming like the wind.
"Hello!" The puffing horse was pulled sharply to a standstill.
"Oh, Wess!" His determination to die without a sound ended in a broken cry of gladness, and he wrapped an arm around the hired man's leg to hold him.
"Bruce! What you doin' here?"
"They plagued me. I'm going home."
"You keep on goin', boy. I'm after you and your father." There was something queer in the hired man's voice--something that frightened him. "Your mother's taken awful sick. Don't waste no time; it's four miles yet; you hustle!" The big horse jumped into the air and was gone.
It was not so much what the hired man said that scared him so, but the way he said it. Bruce had never known him not to laugh and joke, or seen him run his horse like that.
"Oh, mamma, mamma!" he panted as he stumbled on, wishing that he could fly.
When he dragged himself into the room, she was lying on her bed, raised high among the pillows. Her eyes were closed, and the face which was so beautiful to him looked heavy with the strange stupor in which she lay.
"Mamma, I'm here! Mamma, I've come!" He flung himself upon the soft, warm shoulder, but it was still, and the comforting arms lay limp upon the counterpane.
"Mamma, what's the matter? Say something! Look at me!" he cried. But the gray eyes that always beamed upon him with such glad welcome did not open, and the parted lips were unresponsive to his own. There was no movement of her chest to tell him that she even breathed.