“That’s exactly it,” he said.  “You see, I wanted her!”

“Oh!” She gave a sharp, quick gasp of intelligence, and was silent.  After a full minute she rode quite close to his horse, and laid her small brown hand on the animal’s mane.

“I am sorry,” she said simply.

“Thank you,” he answered.  “I’m sure I don’t know why I told you.  I never told any one before.”

There was a long silence between them.  The man seemed to have forgotten her as he rode with his eyes upon his horse’s neck, and his thoughts apparently far away.

At last the girl said softly, as if she were rendering return for the confidence given her, “I ran away from a man.”

The man lifted his eyes courteously, questioningly, and waited.

“He is big and dark and handsome.  He shoots to kill.  He killed my brother.  I hate him.  He wants me, and I ran away from him.  But he is a coward.  I frightened him away.  He is afraid of dead men that he has killed.”

The young man gave his attention now to the extraordinary story which the girl told as if it were a common occurrence.

“But where are your people, your family and friends?  Why do they not send the man away?”

“They’re all back there in the sand,” she said with a sad little flicker of a smile and a gesture that told of tragedy.  “I said the prayer over them.  Mother always wanted it when we died.  There wasn’t anybody left but me.  I said it, and then I came away.  It was cold moonlight, and there were noises.  The horse was afraid.  But I said it.  Do you suppose it will do any good?”

She fastened her eyes upon the young man with her last words as if demanding an answer.  The color came up to his cheeks.  He felt embarrassed at such a question before her trouble.

“Why, I should think it ought to,” he stammered.  “Of course it will,” he added with more confident comfort.

“Did you ever say the prayer?”

“Why,—­I—­yes, I believe I have,” he answered somewhat uncertainly.

“Did it do any good?” She hung upon his words.

“Why, I—­believe—­yes, I suppose it did.  That is, praying is always a good thing.  The fact is, it’s a long time since I’ve tried it.  But of course it’s all right.”

A curious topic for conversation between a young man and woman on a ride through the wilderness.  The man had never thought about prayer for so many minutes consecutively in the whole of his life; at least, not since the days when his nurse tried to teach him “Now I lay me.”

“Why don’t you try it about the lady?” asked the girl suddenly.

“Well, the fact is, I never thought of it.”

“Don’t you believe it will do any good?”

“Well, I suppose it might.”

“Then let’s try it.  Let’s get off now, quick, and both say it.  Maybe it will help us both.  Do you know it all through?  Can’t you say it?” This last anxiously, as he hesitated and looked doubtful.