The Border Legion

Cleve steadied Joan in her saddle, and stood a moment beside her,

holding her hands. The darkness seemed clearing before her eyes and

the sick pain within her seemed numbing out.

"Brace up! Hang--to your saddle!" Jim was saying, earnestly. "Any

moment some of the other bandits might come. ... You lead the way.

I'll follow and drive the pack-horse."

"But, Jim, I'll never be able to find the back-trail," said Joan.

"I think you will. You'll remember every yard of the trail on which

you were brought in here. You won't realize that till you see."

Joan started and did not look back. Cabin Gulch was like a place in

a dream. It was a relief when she rode out into the broad valley.

The grazing horses lifted their heads to whistle. Joan saw the

clumps of bushes and the flowers, the waving grass, but never as she

had seen them before. How strange that she knew exactly which way to

turn, to head, to cross! She trotted her horse so fast that Jim

called to say he could not drive a pack-animal and keep to her gait.

Every rod of the trail lessened a burden. Behind was something

hideous and incomprehensible and terrible; before beckoned something

beginning to seem bright. And it was not the ruddy, calm sunset,

flooding the hills with color. That something called from beyond the

hills.

She led straight to a camp-site she remembered long before she came

to it; and the charred logs of the fire, the rocks, the tree under

which she had lain--all brought back the emotions she had felt

there. She grew afraid of the twilight, and when night settled down

there were phantoms stalking in the shadows. When Cleve, in his

hurried camp duties, went out of her sight, she wanted to cry out to

him, but had not the voice; and when he was close still she trembled

and was cold. He wrapped blankets round her and held her in his

arms, yet the numb chill and the dark clamp of mind remained with

her. Long she lay awake. The stars were pitiless. When she shut her

eyes the blackness seemed unendurable. She slept, to wake out of

nightmare, and she dared sleep no more. At last the day came.

For Joan that faint trail seemed a broad road, blazoned through the

wild canons and up the rocky fastness and through the thick brakes.

She led on and on and up and down, never at fault, with familiar

landmarks near and far. Cleve hung close to her, and now his call to

her or to the pack-horse took on a keener note. Every rough and wild

mile behind them meant so much. They did not halt at the noon hour.

They did not halt at the next camp-site, still more darkly memorable

to Joan. And sunset found them miles farther on, down on the divide,

at the head of Lost Canon.