Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/146

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RESURRECTION ROCK

him. No one ever had been in the same situation as she, in regard to that unknown, all-controlling circumstance, until she met this stranger who had come to her with her father's name, seeking St. Florentin and Resurrection Rock. She could not yet even guess how it might be that he—that little white boy living with the Indians back from the Charlevoix road—had been caught by events which also had ensnared her on the Powder River ranch; it was plain only that they had been caught together.

"You must go, of course," he said; and the sudden dismay which came when he recognized the moment of separation sent a warm, exulting thrill through her. They had come so close together that, wonderfully, they both had been assuming that they were to continue in association; but of course they could not.

"I don't mean I'd have you stay," he said hastily, conscious of the reluctance he had betrayed. "You've done altogether too much for me."

"Not for you!" she denied. "I'd like to do things for you; but I can't have you think you're in debt to me for what I've tried to do. And you're not to feel you got me into this; you—you just came to help me, I feel, in something I was to have to do alone, if you hadn't come."

"The fact is," he rejoined, "that if I hadn't taken it into my head to intrude into affairs up here, you'd be just as usual at your grandfather's house now, with no trouble; or else you'd be on your way back to Wyoming with the money you came for."

"Who put it into your head to intrude? And do you think I'd want his money now if he offered it?—About going; I think I'm glad he's sending me away," she decided. "It's saving me explanations. You see,