He tapped twice on the bottom of the pane.
No answer, but of a sudden the room went dark.
Tap! tap! repeated the hat brim gently.
Still no answer.
Again the man hesitated, and, the night air being a bit frosty, the pony
stamped impatiently.
"Bess," said a low voice, "it is I, How. Won't you tell me good-night?"
This time there was response. The curtain lifted and the sash was
opened; a face appeared, very white against the black background.
"Good-night, How," said a voice obediently.
The man settled back in his seat and the sombrero was unrolled.
"Nothing wrong, is there, Bess?" he hesitated. "You're not sick?"
"No, there's nothing wrong," monotonously. "I'm a bit tired, is all."
For a long minute the man said nothing, merely sat there, his black head
bare in the starlight, looking up at her. Repressed human that he was,
there seemed to him nothing now to say, nothing adequate. Meanwhile the
pony was growing more and more impatient. A tiny hoof beat at the
half-frozen ground rhythmically.
"All right, then, Bess," he said at last. "You mustn't sit there in the
window. It's getting chilly. Good-night."
The girl drew back until her face was in shadow.
"Good-night," she echoed for the second time, and the shade closed as
before.
For five minutes longer the Indian sat as he was, bare of head,
motionless; but the light did not return, nor did he hear a sound, and
at last he rode slowly out the gate and toward his own quarters.
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