He turned back then and walked swiftly through the dusk toward the ridge, beyond which she and Rambler were waiting.  But it was a long way—­much farther than he had realized until he came to retrace his steps—­and the wind blew up a thin rift of clouds which made the darkness come quickly.  He found it difficult to tell exactly at which point he had crossed the ridge, coming over; and although experience in the open develops in a man a certain animal instinct for directions handed down by our primitive ancestry, Ford went wide in his anxiety to take the shortest way back to his unwilling protegee.  The westering slope was lighter, however, and five minutes of wandering along the ridge showed him a dim bulk which he knew was Rambler.  He hurried to the place, and the horse whinnied shrilly as he approached.

“I looked as long as I could see, almost, but I couldn’t locate your horse,” Ford remarked to the dark shadow of the rose bushes.  “I’ll put you on mine.  It will be slow going, of course—­lame as he is—­but I guess we can manage to get somewhere.”

He waited for the chill, impersonal reply.  When she did not speak, he leaned and peered at the spot where he knew she must be.  “If you want to try it, we’d better be starting,” he urged sharply.  “It’s going to be pretty cold here on this side-hill.”

When there was silence still—­and he gave her plenty of time for reply—­Ford stooped and felt gropingly for her, thinking she must be asleep.  He glanced back at Rambler; unless the horse had moved, she should have been just there, under his hands; or, he thought, she may have moved to some other spot, and be waiting in the dark to see what he would do.  His palms touched the pressed grasses where she had been, but he did not say a word.  He would not give her that satisfaction; and he told himself grimly that he had his opinion of a girl who would waste time in foolery, out here in the cold—­with a sprained ankle, to boot.

He pulled a handful of the long grass which grows best among bushes.  It was dead now, and dry.  He twisted it into a makeshift torch, lighted and held it high, so that its blaze made a great disk of brightness all around him.  While it burned he looked for her, and when it grew to black cinders and was near to scorching his hand, he made another and looked farther.  He laid aside his dignity and called, and while his voice went booming full-lunged through the whispering silence of that empty land, he twisted the third torch, and stamped the embers of the second into the earth that it might not fire the prairie.

There was no dodging the fact; the girl was gone.  When Ford was perfectly sure of it, he stamped the third torch to death with vicious heels, went back to the horse, and urged him to limp up the hill.  He did not say anything then or think anything much; at least, he did not think coherently.  He was so full of a wordless rage against the girl, that he did not at first feel the need of expression.  She had made a fool of him.