The Golden Woman

But Joan only saw the radiant young face she loved, the slim, graceful figure so full of life and strength. He was hers. And--and death had snatched him from her. Death had claimed him, when all that she could ever long for seemed to be within her grasp. Death, ruthless, fierce, hateful death had crushed out that life in its cruellest, most merciless fashion.

She saw nothing of the ruin which lay about her. She had no thought of anything else, she had no thought of those others. All she knew was that her Buck, her brave Buck, lay before her--dead.

The girl suddenly turned her despairing eyes to the white heavens, their deep blue depths turned to a wonderful violet of emotion. Her wealth of golden hair hung loose about her shoulders, trailing about her on the sodden earth, where it had fallen in the midst of the disaster that had come upon her. Her rounded young figure was bent like the figure of an aged woman, and the drawn lines of anguish on her beautiful face gave her an age she did not possess.

"Oh, he is not dead!" she cried, in a vain appeal. "Tell me he is not dead!" she cried, to the limitless space beyond the clouds. "He is all I have, all I have in the world. Oh, God, have mercy upon me! Have mercy!"

Her only reply was the stillness. The stillness as of death. She raised her hands to her face. There were no tears. She was beyond that poor comfort. Dry, hard sobs racked her body, and drove the rising fever to her poor brain.

For long moments she remained thus.

Then, after a while, her sobs ceased and she became quite still. She dropped her hands inertly from her face, and let them lie in her lap, nerveless, helpless, while she gazed upon the well-loved features, so pale under the grime and tanning of the skin.

She sat quite still for many minutes. It almost seemed as if the power of reason had at last left her, so colorless was her look, so unchanging was her vacant expression. But at last she stirred. And with her movement a strange light grew in her eyes. It was a look bordering upon the insane, yet it was full of resolve, a desperate resolve. Her lips were tightly compressed, and she breathed hard.

She made no sound. There were no further lamentations. Slowly she reached out one hand toward the beloved body. Nor was the movement a caress. It passed across the tattered garments, through which the painfully contused flesh peered hideously out at her. It moved with definite purpose toward one of the gaping holsters upon the man's waist-belt. Her hand came to a pause over the protruding butt of a revolver. Just for a moment there was hesitation. Then it dropped upon it and her fingers clasped the weapon firmly. She withdrew it, and in a moment it rested in her lap.