She feared to shut her eyes or cover her face, for
then she could not see the stealthy forms stalking her out of the
gloom. She prayed no more to her star.
"Oh, God, have you forsaken me?" she moaned.
How relentless the grip of the endless hours! The black night held
fast. And yet when she had grown nearly mad waiting for the dawn, it
finally broke, ruddy and bright, with the sun, as always, a promise
of better things to come.
Allie found no water that day. She suffered from the lack of it, but
hunger appeared to have left her. Her strength diminished, yet she
walked and plodded miles on miles, always gazing both hopelessly and
hopefully along the winding trail.
At the close of the short and merciful day despair seized upon
Allie's mind. With night came gloom and the memory of her mother's
fate. She still clung to a strange faith that all would soon be
well. But reason, fact, reality, these present things pointed to
certain doom--starvation--death by thirst--or Indians! A thousand
times she imagined she heard the fleet hoof-beating of many
mustangs. Only the tiny pats of the broken sage leaves in the wind!
It was a dark and cloudy night, warmer and threatening rain. She
kept continually turning round and round to see what it was that
came creeping up behind her so stealthily.
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