He looked very pale and beaten as he held Nance Machell's hands now, and
called her a prairie-flower, as he had done when he left her two months
before. On his arrival but now he had said little, for he saw that she
was glad to see him, and he was dead for sleep, after thirty-six hours of
ceaseless travel and watching and danger. Now, with the most perilous
part of his journey still before him, and worn physically as he was, his
blood was running faster as he looked into the girl's face, and something
in her abundant force and bounding life drew him to her. Such vitality
in a man like Abe Hawley would have angered him almost, as it did a
little time ago, when Abe was there; but possessed by the girl, it roused
in him a hunger to draw from the well of her perfect health, from the
unused vigour of her being, something for himself. The touch of her
hands warmed him, in the fulness of her life, in the strong eloquence of
face and form, he forgot she was not beautiful. The lightness passed
from his words, and his face became eager.
"Flower, yes, the flower of the life of the West--that's what I mean,"
he said. "You are like an army marching. When I look at you, my blood
runs faster. I want to march too. When I hold your hand I feel that
life's worth living--I want to do things.
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