The Long Chance by Kyne, Peter B. (Peter Bernard), 1880-1957

Toward morning Bob McGraw opened his eyes and looked at Donna very wonderingly. Then his glance wandered around the room and back to the girl. He was plainly puzzled.

"Where's my horse," he whispered, "and my spurs and my gun and hat?"

Donna bent over him and placed two cool fingers on his lips.

"The hemorrhage has stopped," she warned him, "and you mustn't speak or move, or you may bring it on again."

"I remember--now. I fired--low--and he--got me. Where's Friar Tuck?"

"Your horse? He's in the corral at San Pasqual, and your gun is in the kitchen with your spurs, and your hat--why, I guess I forgot to bring your hat with me. But don't worry about it. I'm Donna Corblay of the Hat Ranch, and I'll give you your choice of a hundred hats if you'll only get well."

"Are you--the--girl--that kissed me?"

Donna's voice was very low, her face was very close to his as she answered him. His lean brown hand stole confidingly into hers--for a long time he was silent, content to lie there and know that she was near him.

Presently he looked up at her again, with the same dominating, wistful entreaty in his brown eyes. She lowered her head until her cheek rested against his, and his arm went upward and around her neck.

"God--made you--for me" he whispered. "I love you, and my name is Bob McGraw. I guess--I'll--get well."

"Beloved," she breathed, "of course you'll get well. I want you to." She smoothed the wavy auburn hair back from his forehead. "Go to sleep" she commanded. "You can't talk to me any more. I'm going to go to sleep, too."

She drew a bright Mexican serape over her shoulders, sat down in a rocking-chair by the side of the bed and closed her eyes. For what seemed to her a lapse of hours, although in reality it was less than five minutes, she tried to induce a clever counterfeit of sleep, but unable longer to deprive herself of another look at her prize she opened her eyes and gazed at Bob McGraw. To her almost childish delight he was watching her; and then she noticed his little, cheerful, half- mocking smile.

She flushed hotly. For the first time she permitted the searchlight of reason to play on the events of the night, and it occurred to her now that she had been guilty of a monstrous breach of convention, an unprecedented, unmaidenly action. She felt like crying now, with the thought that she had held herself so cheap. Bob McGraw saw the flush and the pallor that followed it. He read the unspoken thought behind the changing rush of color.

"Don't feel--that way--about it" he whispered haltingly. "It's unusual --but then--you and I are unusual, too. There seems to be--perfect-- understanding, and between a--man and a woman that means--perfect peace. It had to--be. It was preordained--our meeting. What is--your name?"

Donna again told him.

"Nice--name. Like it."

He closed his eyes and dropped off to sleep like a tired boy.

CHAPTER VI