"Fifty-why, I'm as young as most men of thirty," he responded with an
uncertain laugh. "I'd have come here to-day if it had been snowing
pitchforks and chain-lightning. I made up my mind I would. You saved my
life, that's dead sure; and I'd be down among the: moles if it wasn't for
you and that Piegan pony of yours. Piegan ponies are wonders in a storm-
seem to know their way by instinct. You, too--why, I bin on the plains
all my life, and was no better than a baby that day; but you--why, you
had Piegan in you, why, yes--"
He stopped short for a moment, checked by the look in her face, then went
blindly on: "And you've got Blackfoot in you, too; and you just felt your
way through the tornado and over the blind prairie like a, bird reaching
for the hills. It was as easy to you as picking out a moverick in a
bunch of steers to me. But I never could make out what you was doing on
the prairie that terrible day. I've thought of it a hundred times. What
was you doing, if it ain't cheek to ask?"
"I was trying to lose a life," she answered quietly, her eyes dwelling
on his face, yet not seeing him; for it all came back on her, the agony
which had driven her out into the tempest to be lost evermore.
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