Through the window they could see Alida’s dress glimmering, like a phantom in the darkness, as she strained her eyes towards the path.  Peter hated to leave the women and children in this desolate place.  The night was far spent.  To reach the round-up in season, he could at best snatch a couple of hours’ sleep and be again in the saddle while the stars still shone.  His saddle and saddle blanket were enough for him.  The broad canopy of heaven, the bosom of mother earth, had given him sound, dreamless sleep these many years.  He bade the women good-night, and made his bed where the canon gave entrance to the valley.  But sleep was slow to come.  Now, in that vague, uncertain world where we fall through oceans of space, and the waking is the dream, the dream the waking, Peter caught pale flashes of Kitty’s gold head as she ran and ran, ever in the pursuit of something, she knew not what.  And as she ran hither and thither, she would turn her head and beckon to Peter, and as he followed he felt the burden of years come upon him.  And then he saw Judith’s eyes, still and grave.  He turned and wakened.  No, it was not Judith’s eyes, but the stars above the mountain-tops.

XII

The Round-up

The stars were still shining when Peter Hamilton looked at his watch next morning, but he sternly fought the temptation to lie another two minutes by remembering the day’s work before him, and went in search of the horse that he had not picketed overnight, as the beast required a full belly after the hard night’s ride he had given him.  Peter had rolled out of his blankets with a keen anticipatory relish for the day ahead.  It was well, he knew, that there was ample work of a definite nature for Peter the cow-puncher; as for Peter the man, he was singularly at sea.  Had Judith Rodney been his desert comrade all these cheerful years for him to get his first belated insight into the real Judith only a few little hours back?  Or was it, he wondered, her seeming unconsciousness of him, as she rode brave and sorrowful through the night, to avert, if might be, her brother’s death—­at all events, to comfort and inspirit the frightened woman and her little children—­that had freshly tinged the friendship he had so long felt for her?  Many were the questions that Peter vaguely put to himself as he started out for his long day in the saddle; and none of them he answered.  Indeed, he could not satisfactorily explain to himself why he should think of Judith at all in this way—­Judith, whom he had known so long, and upon whom he counted so securely—­Judith, who understood things, and was as good a comrade as a man.  Surely it was a strange thing that he should discover himself in a sentimental dream of Judith!