The Branding Iron

But sometimes in her sleep Joan would start and moan feeling the touch

of the white-hot iron on her shoulder. Her hatred of Pierre's cruelty,

her resolution to be done with him forever, must have vividly renewed

itself in those dreams, for she would cling to Prosper like a

frightened child, and wake, trembling, happy to find herself safe in

his arms.

So they lived their spring. Wen Ho, the silent and inscrutable, went

out of the valley for provisions, and during his absence Joan queened

it in the kitchen. She was learning to laugh, to see the absurd,

delightful twists of daily living, to mock Prosper's oddities as he

mocked hers. She was learning to be a comrade and she was learning

better speech and more exquisite ways. It was inevitable that she

should learn. Prosper, in these days, spent his whole soul upon her,

fed her with music and delight, and he trained her to sing her sagas so

that every day her voice gained in power and flexible sweetness. She

would sing, since he told her to, her voice beating its wings against

the walls of the house or ringing down the cañon in untrammeled

flight. Prosper was lost in wonder of her, in a passionate admiration

for his own handiwork. He was making, here in this God-forsaken

solitude, a thing of marvel; what he was making surely justified the

means. Joan's laughable simplicity and directness were the same; they

were part of her essence; no civilizing could confuse or disturb them;

but she changed, her brain grew, it absorbed material, it attempted

adventures. Nowadays Joan sometimes argued, and this filled Prosper

with delight, so quaint and logical she was and so skillful.

They were reading out under the firs by the green lip of the lake,

when Wen Ho led his pack-horse up the trail. He had been gone a month,

for Prosper had sent him out of the valley to a distant town for his

supplies. He didn't want the little frontier place to prick up its

ears. Wen Ho had ridden by a secret trail back over the range; he had

not passed even the ranger station on his way. He called out, and, in

the midst of a sentence Joan was reading, Prosper started up.

Joan looked at him smiling. "You're as easily turned away from

learning as a boy," she began, and faltered when she saw his face. It

was turned eagerly toward the climbing horses, toward the pack, and it

was sharp and keen with detached interest, an excitement that had

nothing, nothing in the world to do with her.