will help us both. Do you know it all through? Can't you say it?" This
last anxiously, as he hesitated and looked doubtful.

The color came into the man's face. Somehow this girl put him in a very
bad light. He couldn't shoot; and, if he couldn't pray, what would she
think of him?

"Why, I think I could manage to say it with help," he answered uneasily.
"But what if that man should suddenly appear on the scene?"

"You don't think the prayer is any good, or you wouldn't say that." She
said it sadly, hopelessly.

"O, why, certainly," he said, "only I thought there might be some better
time to try it; but, if you say so, we'll stop right here." He sprang to
the ground, and offered to assist her; but she was beside him before he
could get around his horse's head.

Down she dropped, and clasped her hands as a little child might have done,
and closed her eyes.

"Our Father," she repeated slowly, precisely, as if every word belonged to
a charm and must be repeated just right or it would not work. The man's
mumbling words halted after hers. He was reflecting upon the curious
tableau they would make to the chance passer-by on the desert if there
were any passers-by. It was strange, this aloneness. There was a wideness
here that made praying seem more natural than it would have been at home
in the open country.

The prayer, by reason of the unaccustomed lips, went slowly; but, when it