"Nell, I'm that absent-minded
these days!"
"Dad!" she cried.
"That'll do from you," he replied, in a voice he had never used
to her. "Get breakfast now, then pack to leave Forlorn River."
"Leave Forlorn River!" whispered Nell, with a thin white hand
stealing up to her breast. How changed the girl was! Belding
reproached himself for his hardness, but did not speak his thought
aloud. Nell was fading here, just as Mercedes had faded before
the coming of Thorne.
Nell turned away to the west window and looked out
across the desert toward the dim blue peaks in the distance.
Belding watched her; likewise the Gales; and no one spoke.
There ensued a long silence. Belding felt a lump rise in his
throat. Nell laid her arm against the window frame, but gradually
it dropped, and she was leaning with her face against the wood.
A low sob broke from her. Elsie Gale went to her, embraced her,
took the drooping head on her shoulder.
"We've come to be such friends," she said. "I believe it'll be
good for you to visit me in the city. Here--all day you look out
across that awful lonely desert....Come, Nell."
Heavy steps sounded outside on the flagstones, then the door rattled
under a strong knock. Belding opened it. The Chases, father and
son, stood beyond the threshold.
"Good morning, Belding," said the elder Chase. "We were routed
out early by that big blast and came up to see what was wrong. All
a blunder. The Greaser foreman was drunk yesterday, and his
ignorant men made a mistake.
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