I had read all my life of being afoot on the
Plains. Here was the reality.
"But you are hurt," she cried. "Look, your wound is bleeding."
I had not known it, but my neck was wet with blood.
"Get up and ride," she said. "We must be going." But I held the stirrup
for her instead, smiling.
"Mount!" I said, and so I put her up.
"Shall we go back to camp?" she asked in some perturbation, apparently
forgetting that there was no camp, and that by this time the wagons
would be far to the west. For reasons of my own I thought it better to
go back to the dead antelope, and so I told her.
"It is over there," she said, pointing in the direction from which she
thought she had come. I differed with her, remembering I had ridden with
the sun in my face when following it, and remembering the shape of the
hilltop near by. Finally my guess proved correct, and we found the dead
animal, nearly a mile from where she had waited for me. I hurried with
the butchering, cutting the loin well forward, and rolling it all tight
in the hide, bound the meat behind the saddle.
"Now, shall we go back?" she asked. "If we rode opposite to the sun, we
might strike the trail. These hills look all alike.
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