Saxon's lack of enthusiasm surprised him.
'What's wrong?' he demanded quickly.
With downcast demurest eyes and hesitating speech, Saxon said:
'I did something yesterday without asking your advice, Billy.'
He waited.
'I wrote to Tom,' she added, with an air of timid confession.
Still he waited-for he knew not what.
'I asked him to ship up the old chest of drawers-my mother's, you remember-that we stored with him.'
'Huh! I don't see anything outa the way about that,' Billy said with relief. 'We need the chest, don't we? An' we can afford to pay the freight on it, can't we?'
'You are a dear stupid man, that's what you are. Don't you know what is in the chest?'
He shook his head, and what she added was so soft that it was almost a whisper:
'The baby clothes.'
'No!' he exclaimed.
'True.'
'Sure?'
She nodded her head, her cheeks flooding with quick color.
'It's what I wanted, Saxon, more'n anything else in the world. I've been thinkin' a whole lot about it lately, ever since we hit the valley,' he went on, brokenly, and for the first time she saw tears unmistakable in his eyes. 'But after all I'd done, an' the hell I'd raised, an' everything, I… I never urged you, or said a word about it. But I wanted it… oh, I wanted it like… like I want you now.'
His open arms received her, and the pool in the heart of the canyon knew a tender silence.
Saxon felt Billy's finger laid warningly on her lips. Guided by his hand, she turned her head back, and together they gazed far up the side of the knoll where a doe and a spotted fawn looked down upon them from a tiny open space between the trees.
