If the wind shrilled down
the pass, if a horse neighed from the corral, there was always the start in
her, the thrill of hope, and afterwards the pitiful deadening of her smile.
She was not less beautiful they thought, as she grew paler, but the
terrible silence of the place drove them away time and again. Even Joan no
longer pattered about the house, and when they came down out of the
mountains they never heard her shrill laughter. She sat cross-legged by the
hearth in her old place during the evenings with her chin resting on one
hand and her eyes fixed wistfully upon the fire; and sometimes they found
her on the little hillock behind the house, from the top of which she could
view every approach to the cabin. Of Dan and even of Black Bart, her
playmate she soon learned not to speak, for the mention of them made her
mother shrink and whiten. Indeed, the saddest thing in that house was the
quiet in which the child waited, waited, waited, and never spoke.
"She ain't more'n a baby," said Buck Daniels, "and you can leave it to time
to make her forget.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172