And
Larry lost his grin; he caught a glimpse of her face, and his own
grew troubled.
"Allie--I shore--am glad to meet you," he said, and there was more
feeling in his voice than Neale had ever before heard. Larry was not
slow of comprehension. He began to talk in his drawling way. Neale
heard him with a smile he tried to hide, but he liked Larry the
better for his simplicity. This gun-throwing cowboy had a big heart.
Larry, however, did not linger for long. His attempts to get the
girl to talk grew weaker and ended; then, after another glance at
the tragic, wan face he got up and thoughtfully slouched away.
"So your name is Allie," said Neale. "Well, Allie what?"
She did not respond to one out of a hundred questions, and this
query found no lodgment in her mind.
"Will you braid your hair now?" he asked.
The answer was the low and monotonous negative, but, nevertheless,
her hands sought her hair and parted it, and began to braid it
mechanically. This encouraged Neale more than anything else; it
showed him that there were habits of mind into which he could turn
her. Finally he got her to walk along the brook and also to eat and
drink.
At the end of that day he was more exhausted than he would have been
after a hard climb. Yet he was encouraged to think that he could get
some kind of passive unconscious obedience from her.
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