He nodded cheerily at her but her
eyes showed no responsive gleam, dwelling on him wide and unseeing. As
he moved away he heard her burst into sudden tears, such tears as she
had shed at the Fort, and turning back with arms ready for her
comforting, saw her throw herself against Courant's knees, her face
buried in the folds of her shawl. He stood arrested, amazed not so
much by the outburst as by the fact that it was to Courant she had
turned and not to him. But when he spoke to her she drew the shawl
tighter over her head and pressed her face against the mountain man's
knees. Daddy John had no explanation of her conduct but that she had
been secretly fearful about David and had turned for consolation to the
human being nearest her.
The next day her anxiety was so sharp that she could not eat and the
men grew accustomed to the sight of her mounted on the rock's summit,
or walking slowly along the trail searching with untiring eyes. When
alone with her lover he kissed and caressed her fears into abeyance.
As he soothed her, clasped close against him, her terrors gradually
subsided, sinking to a quiescence that came, not alone from his calm
and practical reassurances, but from the power of his presence to drug
her reason and banish all thoughts save those of him.
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