The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1915-03-04
XIII.
Open Mutjny.

Open Mutiny.
though she had been schooled to hold
the very name of Law in loathing vn.
speaKable and to think Of Alan as a
mortal enemy and as enc whose death
alone could properly requite the cruel
INJURY tina had been done her father:
and though the man himself had
iaughed to scorn her first involuntary
confession Of that love for him which
now consumed her being with it's in.
satlabie fires, she swallowed her
chagrin and followed him with the
solicitude Of II whose love can recog-
nize no Wrong in its object. Through
all the remainder of that day of terror
she was never far from his side.
With the meekness of the strong,
she made herself his shadow. And
she was now the stronger, for she had
had more than an hours rest beside
the Waterhole, which he had missed
on the way of that rocky ~windbreak.
Sooner or later his strength must fail
him and he would need her; till then
she was content to bide her hour.
1t befell presently In startling fash
ION she was not a yard behind him
when he vanished abruptly.
But the next moment Judith herself
was trembling on the crumbling brink
Of an arroyo Of depth and width in
determlnable in the o~bscurity of the
duststorm. Down this. evidently
Alan had fallen ii his dizzy blindness.
Sne found him insensible. lying with
an arm bent under him in a pose
irIghtiully suggestive of dislocation.
Yet when she turned him on his back
ana released the arm. he made no
sign to indicate that the movement
had caused him the slightest pain.
There was d slight cut upon his
brow, a bruise about his left temple.
She tore linen from her bosom, be-
meath her coarse. flannel shirt, and with
sparing aid from the canteen, washed
the cut clean and b~andaged it.
Then seeing that the storm held
with fury undated, she rose, recon
noitered and returned to exert all her
strength and drag the unconscious
man across the dry bed Of that ancient
intercourse and under the lee Of it's
farther bank.
There, sitting, she pillowed his
head upon her lap, and bending over
him made her body an additional shell
ter to him from the swirling clouds
of dust,
And for hours on end Judith nursed
him there, scarce daring to move
save to minister to his needs, bathing
his feyered brow and moistening his
parched lips and throat.
in the course of the first hour she
was once startled by the spectral WIS.,
ion through the driving sheets Of dust
of a horse that plodded up the arroyo,
bearing two riders on it's back.
Weary with the weight of its double
burden, 1t went slowly and passed so
near to Judith that she was able to
recognize the features Of her sister
and Tom Barcus.
BE sure she made never a sign to
catch their attention.
Within the next succeeding hour
the coppery light lost something Of
It's hot b%rillanCe, took on a darker
shade, and then one darker still. Twi-
light stole athwart the desert. turning
its heat to chill. its light to violet.
Growing more intense, the cold
eventually reused the sleeping man.
And hardly had his eyes Enclosed
and looked up into the eyes Of Judith
bending over him than he started up
and out Of her embrace, got instead
lily upon his feet and after a moment
Of pause. watching her rise in turn,
strobe away-or, rather, staggered
with the gesture of eXorcism,
Uncomplaining, hugging her new
born humility to her with the ecstasy
Of the anchorite his horse-hair shirt,
Judith followed him patiently, at a
little distance.
Not far from where he had rested
there was a break inythe overhanging
wall Of the arroyo. Through this he
scrambled painfully, reaching the level
of the desert only after cruel effort,
the UNDECIDED woman at his heels.
A brief pause there afforded both
time to regain their breath and survey
the desert for signs of assistance: it
offered none. other than what they
might accomplish through their own
exertions. For leagues in any quarter
it stretched without a break other than
the black cleft of the arroyo, cleaning
a bleached and deathly white in the