The Branding Iron

For all that day Prosper fled the house and went across the country,

now fording a flood of melted snow, now floundering through a drift,

now walking on springy sod, unaware of the soft spring, conscious only

of a sort of fire in his breast. He suffered and he resented his

suffering, and he would have killed his heart if, by so doing, he

could have given it peace. And all day he did not once think of Joan,

but only of the "tall child" for whom the gay cañon refuge had been

built, but who had never set her slim foot upon its threshold. Sunset

found him miles away in the foothills of a low, many-folded range

across the plain. He was dog tired, so that for very exhaustion his

brain had stopped its tormenting work. He lit a fire and sat by it,

huddled in his coat, smoking, dozing, not able really to sleep for

cold and hunger. The bright stars, flung all about the sky, mildly

regarded hum. Coyotes mourned their loneliness and hunger near and

far, and once, in the broken woods above him, a mountain lion gave its

blood-curdling scream. Prosper hated the night and its beautiful

desolation, he hated the God that had made this land. He cursed the

dawn when it came delicately, spreading a green arc of radiance across

the east. And then, as he arose stiffly, stamped out his fire, and

started slowly on his way back, he was conscious of a passionate

homesickness, not for the old life he had lost, but for his cabin, his

bright hearth, his shut-in solitude, his Joan. Very dear and real and

human she was, and her laughter had been sweet. He had shocked it to

silence, he had repulsed her comforting hands. She had been so

innocent of any desire to hurt him. He could not imagine her ever

hurting any one, this broad-browed Joan. She was so kind. And now she

must be anxious about him. She would have sat up by the fire all

night.... His eagerness for her slighted comfort gave his lagging

steps a certain vigor, the long walk back seemed very long, indeed.

Noon was hot, but he found water and by sundown he came to the cañon

trail. He wanted Joan as badly now as a hurt child wants its mother.

He came, haggard and breathless, to the door, called "Joan," came into

the warm little room and found it empty. Wen Ho, to be sure, pattered

to meet him.

"Mister Gael been gone a long time, velly long, all night. Wen Ho, he

fix bed, fix breakfast--oh, the lady? She gone out yestiddy, not come

back. She leave a letter for him, there on the table."