"
Gasping, with a bursting heart, ovewhelmed by an unutterable joy
of divination, Gale fumbled with the paper until he got it open.
It was a certificate twenty-one years old, and recorded the marriage
of Robert Burton and Nellie Warren.
XX
DESERT GOLD
A SUMMER day dawned on Forlorn River, a beautiful, still, hot,
golden day with huge sail clouds of white motionless over No Name
Peaks and the purple of clear air in the distance along the desert
horizon.
Mrs. Belding returned that day to find her daughter happy and the
past buried forever in two lonely graves. The haunting shadow left
her eyes. Gale believed he would never forget the sweetness, the
wonder, the passion of her embrace when she called him her boy and
gave him her blessing.
The little wrinkled padre who married Gale and Nell performed the
ceremoney as he told his beads, without interest or penetration,
and went his way, leaving happiness behind.
"Shore I was a sick man," Ladd said, "an' darn near a dead one, but
I'm agoin' to get well. Mebbe I'll be able to ride again someday.
Nell, I lay it to you. An' I'm agoin' to kiss you an' wish you
all the joy there is in this world. An', Dick, as Yaqui says,
she's shore your Shower of Gold."
He spoke of Gale's finding love--spoke of it with the deep and
wistful feeling of the lonely ranger who had always yearned for
love and had never known it. Belding, once more practical, and
important as never before with mining projects and water claims
to manage, spoke of Gale's great good fortune in finding of
gold--he called it desert gold.
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