Elizabeth—­that was all he had of her.  He did not know the rest of her name, nor where she was going.  He did not even know where she had come from, just “Elizabeth” and “Montana.”  If anything happened lo her, he would never know.  Oh! why had he left her?  Why had he not made her go with him?  In a case like that a man should assert his authority.  But, then, it was true he had none, and she had said she would run away.  She would have done it too.  O, if it had been anything but sickness and possible death at the other end—­and his mother, his own little mother!  Nothing else would have kept him from staying to protect Elizabeth.

What a fool he had been!  There were questions he might have asked, and plans they might have made, all those beautiful days and those moon-silvered nights.  If any other man had done the same, he would have thought him lacking mentally.  But here he had maundered on, and never found out the all-important things about her.  Yet how did he know then how important they were to be?  It had seemed as if they had all the world before them in the brilliant sunlight.  How could he know that modern improvements were to seize him in the midst of a prairie waste, and whirl him off from her when he had just begun to know what she was, and to prize her company as a most precious gift dropped down from heaven at his feet?

By degrees he came out of his hysterical frenzy, and returned to a somewhat normal state of mind.  He reasoned himself several times into the belief that those men were not in the least like the men he had seen Sunday.  He knew that one could not recognize one’s own brother at that distance and that rate of passing speed.  He tried to think that Elizabeth would be cared for.  She had come through many a danger, and was it likely that the God in whom she trusted, who had guarded her so many times in her great peril, would desert her now in her dire need?  Would He not raise up help for her somewhere?  Perhaps another man as good as he, and as trustworthy as he had tried to be, would find her and help her.

But that thought was not pleasant.  He put it away impatiently.  It cut him.  Why had she talked so much about the lady?  The lady!  Ah!  How was it the lady came no more into his thoughts?  The memory of her haughty face no more quickened his heart-beats.  Was he fickle that he could lose what he had supposed was a lifelong passion in a few days?

The darkness was creeping on.  Where was Elizabeth?  Had she found a refuge for the night?  Or was she wandering on an unknown trail, hearing voices and oaths through the darkness, and seeing the gleaming of wild eyes low in the bushes ahead?  How could he have left her?  How could he?  He must go back even yet.  He must, he must, he must!

And so it went on through the long night.