Yet somewhere in
that space the tragedy was being determined--unless it had been
already enacted.
She wanted to scream. The very stillness mocked her. So, too, did
the clicking windmill, with its monotonous regularity. Her pony
still stood saddled in the yard. She knew that her place was at
home, and she fought down a dozen times the tremendous impulse to
mount and fly to the field of combat.
She looked at her watch. How slowly the minutes dragged! It could
not be only five minutes since she had looked last time. Again
she fell to pacing the long west porch, and interrupted herself a
dozen times to stop and listen.
"I can bear it no longer," she told herself at last, and in
another moment was in the saddle plying her pinto with the quirt.
But before she reached the first cottonwoods she saw them coming.
Her glasses swept the distant group, and with a shiver she made
out the dreadful truth. They were coming slowly, carrying
something between them. The girl did not need to be told that the
object they were bringing home was their dead or wounded.
A figure on horseback detached itself from the huddle of men and
galloped towards her. He was coming to break the news.
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