“Not consciously. I’m good for several miles yet myself. I haven’t had such a good time in three years, not since I left home—and Mother,” he added softly.

His eyes held a look that made the girl long to know more.

“Oh, then you have a mother!”

“Yes, I have a mother—a wonderful mother!” He breathed the words like a blessing.

The girl looked at him in awe. She had no mother. Her own had died before she could remember. Aunt Maria was her only idea of a mother.

“Is she out here?” she asked.

“No, she’s at home up in New Hampshire in a quiet country town, but she’s a wonderful mother.”

“And have you no one else, no other family out here with you?”

Hazel didn’t realize how anxiously she awaited the answer to that question. Somehow she felt a jealous dislike of anyone who might belong to him, even a mother—and a sudden thought of sister or wife who might share the cabin with him made her watch his face narrowly.

But the answer was quick, with almost a shadow like deep longing on his face. “Oh no, I have no one. I’m alone. And sometimes, if it weren’t for Mother’s letters, it would seem a long way from home.”

The girl didn’t know why it was pleasant to know this and why her heart went out in instant sympathy for him.

“Oh-oo!” she said gently. “Tell me about your mother, please!”

And so he told her, as he walked beside her, of his invalid mother whose frail body and its needs bound her to a couch in her old New England home, helpless and tended by a devoted nurse she loved and who loved her. Her strong spirit had risen to the sacrifice of sending her only son out to the desert on his chosen commission.

They were climbing a long, sloping hill and, by the story’s end, reached the top where they could look abroad again over a wide expanse of country. The kingdoms of the whole world seemed to lie there before Hazel’s awed gaze. A brilliant sunset was spreading a great silver light behind the purple mountains in the west, red and blue in flaming luxury, with billows of white clouds floating above. Over that, in sharp contrast, the sky was velvet black with a storm. To the south the rain was falling in a brilliant shower like yellow gold, and to the east two more patches of rain fell rosy pink, like petals of some wondrous flowers. A half rainbow arched over them. Turning slightly toward the north, they could see the rain falling from dark blue clouds in great streaks of white light.

“Oh-oo!” breathed the girl. “How wonderful! I never saw anything like that before.”

But the missionary had no time to answer. He unstrapped the canvas quickly from behind the saddle, watching the clouds as he did so.

“We’re going to get soaked!” he exclaimed, looking anxiously at the girl.

Chapter 6

Camp

It came before he was ready for it. But he managed to throw the canvas over the horse and the girl, asking her to hold it on one side while he, standing close under the improvised tent, held the other side, leaving an opening in front for air. The girl laughed as the first great splashes struck her face. Then she retreated into the shelter as she was asked and sat quietly watching and wondering over it all. Thus they managed to keep tolerably dry, while two storms met overhead and poured down a torrent upon them.

Here she was, a carefully nurtured daughter of society, until now never stepping one inch beyond the line of conventionality, sitting far away from her friends and family on a wide desert plain under canvas, with a strange missionary’s arm around her. And she was as secure and contented, even happy, as if she were in her own cushioned chair in her New York sitting room. Of course, the arm was around her to hold down the canvas and keep out the rain, but it had a wonderful security and sense of strength that filled her with a strange new joy. And it made her wish the storm would keep on raging in brilliant display about her head a little longer, if she might then continue to feel the strength of that fine presence near and about her. She was weary, so she put all other thoughts out of her mind for the time and leaned back against the strong arm, knowing she was safe in the midst of the storm.

The missionary wore his upward look. No word passed between them as the panorama of the storm swept by. Only God knew what was passing in his soul and that, from the lovely girl’s nearness, a great longing was born to have her always near him, his right to protect her from the storms of life.

But he was a man of marked self-control.