Free the Thundering Herd (1984) by Zane Grey Page A

pleasing prospect--and that was a hope, forlorn at best, of somewhere again seeing the tall, handsome stranger who had spoken so kindly to her and gazed at her with such thoughtful eyes.
    Not that she hoped for anything beyond just seeing him! She would be grateful for that. Her stepfather would not permit any friendships, let alone acquaintances, with buffalo-hunters. Five weeks with this stepfather had taught her much, and she feared him.
    Last night his insulting speech before Tom Doan had created in Milly the nucleus of a revolt. She dared to imagine a time might come, in another year when she became of age, that would give her freedom.
    The meeting with Tom Doan last night had occasioned, all in twelve hours, a change in Milly Fayre. His look had haunted her, and even in the kindly darkness it had power to bring the blood to her face.
    Then his words so full of fear and reproach--"I may never see you again!"--they had awakened Milly's heart. No matter what had inspired them! Yet she could harbor no doubt of this fine-spoken, clear-eyed young man. He was earnest. He meant that not to see her again would cause him regret. What would it mean to her--never to see him again? She could not tell. But seeing him once had lightened her burden.
    So in Milly Fayre there was born a dream. Hard work on a farm had been her portion--hard work in addition to the long journey to and from school. She did not remember her father, who had been one of the missing in the war. It had been a tragedy, when she was sixteen, for her mother to marry Randall Jett, and then live only a few months. Milly had no relatives. Boys and men had tormented her with their advances, and their importunities, like the life she had been forced to lead, had not brought any brightness. Relief indeed had been hers during those months when her stepfather had been absent hunting buffalo. But in March he had returned with another wife, a woman hard featured and coarse and unreasonably jealous of Milly. He had sold the little Missouri farm and brought his wife and Milly south, inflamed by his prospects of gaining riches in the buffalo fields.
    From the start Milly had dreaded that journey. But she could not resist. She was in Randall Jett's charge. Besides, she had nowhere to go; she knew nothing except the work that fell to the lot of a daughter of the farm. She had been apathetic, given to broodings and a growing tendency toward morbidness. All the days of that traveling southward had been alike, until there came the one on which her kindness to a horse had brought her face to face with Tom Doan. What was it that had made him different? Had the meeting been only last night?
    The wagon rolled on down the uneven road, and the sudden lighting of the canvas indicated that the sun had risen. Milly heard the rattling of the harness on the horses. One of the wagons, that one driven by Jett, was close behind.
    Movement and sound of travel became more bearable as Milly pondered over the difference one day had wrought. It was better that she was going on the road of the hide-hunters, for Tom Doan was one of them. Every thought augmented something vague and deep that baffled her. One moment she would dream of yesterday--that incident of casual meeting, suddenly to become one of strangely locked eyes--how all day she had watched Hudnall's camp for sight of the tall young man--how she had listened to Jett's gossip with his men about the other outfits--how thrilled she had been when she had met Tom Doan again. It had not been altogether fear of her stepfather that had made her run off from this outspoken, keen-eyed young man. She had been suddenly beset by unfamiliar emotions.
    The touch of his hands--his look--his speech! Milly felt again the uplift of her heart, the swell of breast, the tingling race of blood, the swift, vague, fearful thoughts.
    The next moment Milly would try to drive away the sweet insidious musing, to ponder over her presence there in this rattling wagon, and