Free Dorn Of The Mountains by Zane Grey Page A

above.
    When the girls had satisfied hunger and thirst, night had settled down black. They pulled the cloaks up over them and, close together, leaned back in a corner of the seat and talked in whispers. Helen did not have much to say, but Bo was talkative.
    “This beats me,” she said once, after an interval. “Where are we, Nell? Those men up there are Mormons. Maybe they are abducting us.”
    “Mister Dorn isn’t a Mormon,” replied Helen.
    “How do you know?”
    “I could tell by the way he spoke of his friends.”
    “Well, I wish it wasn’t so dark. I’m not afraid of men in daylight…. Nell, did you ever see such a wonderful-looking fellow? What’d they call him? Milt…Milt Dorn. He said he lived in the woods. If I hadn’t fallen in love with that cowboy who called me…well, I’d be a goner now.”
    After an interval of silence Bo whispered startlingly: “Wonder if Harve Riggs is following us now?”
    “Of course he is,” replied Helen hopelessly.
    “He’d better look out. Why, Nell, he never saw…he never…what did Uncle Al used to call it?…saw…savvied…that’s it. Riggs never savvied that hunter. But I did, you bet.”
    “Savvied! What do you mean, Bo?”
    “I mean that long-haired galoot never saw his real danger. But I felt it. Something went tight inside me. Dorn never took him seriously at all.”
    “Riggs will turn up at Uncle Al’s sure as I’m born,” said Helen.
    “Let him turn,” replied Bo contemptuously. “Nell, don’t you ever bother your head again about him. I’ll bet they’re all men out here. And I wouldn’t be in Harve Riggs’s boots for a lot.”
    After that Bo talked of her uncle, and his fatal illness, and from that she drifted back to the loved ones at home, now seemingly at the other side of the world, and then she broke down and cried, after which she fell asleep on Helen’s shoulder.
    But Helen could not have fallen asleep if she had wanted to.
    She had always, since she could remember, longed for a moving active life, and for want of a better ideal she had chosen to dream of Gypsies. And now it struck her grimly that, if these first few hours of her advent in the West were forecasts of the future, she was destined to have her longings fulfilled with a vengeance.
    Presently the stage rolled slower and slower until it came to a halt. Then the horses heaved, the harnesses clinked , the men whispered. Otherwise, there was an intense quiet. She looked out, expecting to find it pitch dark. It was black, yet a transparent blackness. To her surprise she could see a long way. A shooting star electrified her. The men were listening. She listened, too, but, beyond the slight sounds about the stage, she heard nothing. Presently the driver clucked his horses, and travel was resumed.
    For a while the stage rolled on rapidly, evidently downhill, swaying from side to side, and rolling as if about to fall to pieces. Then it slowed on a level, and again it halted for a few moments, and once more in motion it began a laborsome climb. Helen imagined miles had been covered. The desert appeared to heave into billows, growing rougher, and dark round bushes dimly stood out. The road grew uneven and rocky, and, when the stage began another descent, its violent rocking jolted Bo out of her sleep, and in fact almost out of Helen’s arms.
    “Where am I?” asked Bo dazedly.
    “Bo, you’re having your heart’s desire, but I can’t tell you where you are,” replied Helen.
    Bo awakened thoroughly, which fact was now no wonder, considering the jostling of the old stage.
    “Hold on to me, Nell! Is it a runaway?”
    “We’ve come about a thousand miles like this, I think,” replied Helen. “I’ve not a whole bone in my body.”
    Bo peered out of the window. “Oh, how dark and lonesome! But it’d be nice if it wasn’t so cold. I’m freezing.”
    “I thought you loved cold air,” taunted Helen.
    “Say, Nell, you begin to talk like yourself,” responded Bo.
    It was