Part 15 (1/2)

”Well, then, father, when I die take me back, take me back to the mountains. I want to hear the water--the cool, sweet, clear water, where I lie; and the wind in the trees--the cool, pure wind in the trees, father. And you know the three trees just above the old cabin on the hill by the water-fall? Bury me, bury me there. Yes, there, where I can hear the cool water all the time, and the wind in the trees. And--and won't you please cut my name on the tree by the water? My name, Carrie--just Carrie, that's all. I have no other name--just Carrie. Will you? Will you do this for me?”

”As there is a G.o.d--as I live, I will!” and the old man lifted his face as he bared his head, and looked toward heaven.

The girl's mind wandered now. She spoke incoherently for a few moments, and then was silent. Her form was convulsed, her breast heaved just a little, her helpless hands reached about the old man's neck as if they would hold him from pa.s.sing from her presence; they fell away, and then all was still. It was now gray dawn.

This man's heart was bursting with rage and a savage sorrow. He was now stung with a sense of awful injustice. His heart was swelling with indignation. He took up the form before him; up in his arms, as if it had been that of an infant. He threw his handkerchief across the face as he pa.s.sed out, stooping low through the dark and narrow doorway, and strode in great, long and hurried steps down the street and over toward the hills beyond, where his horse was tethered in the long, brown gra.s.s.

As the old man pa.s.sed the post on the hill, where the officers slept under the protection of loaded cannon, the guard stopped him with his bayonet.

”Halt! Where are you going? And what have you there? Come, where are you going?”

The old man threw back the handkerchief as the guard approached, and the new sunlight fell on the girl's face.

”I am going to bury my dead.”

The guard started back. He almost dropped his gun as he saw that face; then, recovering himself, he bared his head, bowed his face reverently, and motioned the old man on.

Forty-nine reached his horse in the brown gra.s.s, laid his burden down, threw on the saddle, drew the girth with sudden strength and energy, as if for a long and desperate ride. Then resuming his load, tenderly, as if it were a sleeping infant, he vaulted into the saddle and dashed away for the Sierras, that lay before him, and lifted like a city of snowy temples, reared to the wors.h.i.+p of the Eternal.

It was a desperate ride for life. The girl's long soft black hair was in the wind. The air was purer, sweeter here; there was a sense of liberty, of life, in this ride, right in the face of the rising sun as it streamed down over the snowy summits of the Sierras. Every plunge of the strong swift mustang, brought them nearer to home, to hope, to life.

The horse seemed to know that now was his day of mighty enterprise.