“Someone has half shot it; it must be in torture.”
“Go and borrow a rifle,” she said. “I will stay here and keep away those little fiends. Do go.”
“Afraid? No, only so sorry. What horrible, unavailing suffering! Go, and be quick.”
He walked briskly away, and she strolled up and down. The children came near to stare at her, but they ceased to torment the horse. She could not bear its eyes; they seemed to beg of her to kill it, and she could do nothing. She clasped her hands together with such force that they hurt her as she longed and longed for Paul’s return. It began to grow dusk. She had forgotten tea, and the rest of the party—would they be looking for her, and imagining all sorts of things? Meanwhile the horse’s moans grew louder; the young squaw with the baby came slowly down the road—the baby was crying.
Launa asked if she knew who owned the horse.
“A man named Morris, who lives down the road four miles away. He turned him out to die; he is too old to work or eat.”
“Yes,” grunted the girl, who was so young and almost pretty; “my grandmother cursed him.”
“Oh,” interrupted the other, “will Paul never come? If he would only be quick.”
She could not bear these revelations. The moans of the horse and the shrill misery of the child were torturing her.
Someone suddenly threw a stone from behind the shelter of a spruce tree; it struck the horse, which gave a sharp scream. In the distance Launa heard footsteps. She ran down the road. It was Paul.
“I am so glad you have come,” she said breathlessly, quickly. “Hurry. Did you get a rifle?”
“Are you _glad_?” his voice changed. “Yes, I have it.”
He looked at her with a certain wistfulness which was unusual.
He is going to tell me he is sorry for _that_, she thought, remembering the squaw and the child who had come near them.
“Go, go and put him out of his misery,” she said, with quick anger and excitement. “There is so much torture, so much suffering for animals, women, and children. Oh, God! it is awful!”
“You,” he said merely, but with bitterness, almost hatred, in his tone. “Go away.”
“You are a brute,” said Launa, “to talk to her in that way. What has she done? Go and kill the horse.”
“Not until you are further away,” he said, with gentleness. “He may, and probably will, scream. That woman is not fit for you to talk to or to touch.”