Once the horse stirred and breathed a soft protest. He could not
understand why they were stopping so long in this desolate place, for
nothing apparently. He had looked and looked at the shapeless mound before
which the girl was standing; but he saw no sign of his lost master, and
his instincts warned him that there were wild animals about. Anyhow, this
was no place for a horse and a maid to stop in the night.

A few loose stones rattled from the horse's motion. The girl started, and
looked hastily about, listening for a possible pursuer; but everywhere in
the white sea of moonlight there was empty, desolate space. On to the
"Amen" she finished then, and with one last look at the lonely graves she
turned to the horse. Now they might go, for the duty was done, and there
was no time to be lost.

Somewhere over toward the east across that untravelled wilderness of white
light was the trail that started to the great world from the little cabin
she had left. She dared not go back to the cabin to take it, lest she find
herself already followed. She did not know the way across this lonely
plain, and neither did the horse. In fact, there was no way, for it was
all one arid plain so situated that human traveller seldom came near it,
so large and so barren that one might wander for hours and gain no goal,
so dry that nothing would grow.

With another glance back on the way she had come, the girl mounted the
horse and urged him down into the valley. He stepped cautiously into the
sandy plain, as if he were going into a river and must try its depth. He
did not like the going here, but he plodded on with his burdens. The girl
was light; he did not mind her weight; but he felt this place uncanny, and
now and then would start on a little spurt of haste, to get into a better