her history, and to find her suing for his protection
was quite thrilling. Tales of her pale beauty were common and not tame,
but she was all and more than she had been described. And yet why had
no one told him she was so young? This woman's youth and attractiveness
amazed him; he felt that he had made a startling discovery. Was she so
cold, after all, or was she merely reserved? Red hair above a pure
white face; a woman's form wrapped in his blanket; ripe red lips
caressing the rim of his mean drinking-cup! Those were things to think
about. Those were pictures for a lonely man.
She had not been too proud and cold to let him help her. In her fatigue
she had allowed him to lift her and to make her more comfortable. Hot
against his palms--palms unaccustomed to the touch of woman's flesh--he
felt the contact of her naked feet, as at the moment when he had placed
them in the cooling water. Her feeble resistance had only called
attention to her sex--to the slim whiteness of her ankles beneath her
short riding-skirt.
Following his first amazement at beholding her had come a fantastic
explanation of her presence--for a moment or two it had seemed as if
the fates had taken heed of his yearnings and had sent her to him out
of the dusk--wild fancies, like these, bother men who are much alone.
Of course he had not dreamed that she was the mistress of Las Palmas.
That altered matters, and yet--they were to spend a long idle day
together. If the Mexican did not come, another night like this would
follow, and she was virtually his prisoner. Perhaps, after all--
Dave Law stirred nervously and sighed.
"Don't this beat hell?" he murmured.
II
THE AMBUSH
Alaire Austin slept badly. The day's hardships had left their traces.
The toxins of fatigue not only poisoned her muscles with aches and
pains, but drugged her brain and rendered the night a long succession
of tortures during which she experienced for a second time the agonies
of thirst and fatigue and despair. Extreme physical ordeals, like
profound emotional upheavals, leave imprints upon the brain, and while
the body may recover quickly, it often requires considerable time to
rest exhausted nerves. The finer the nervous organism, the slower is
the process of recuperation. Like most normal women, Alaire had a
surprising amount of endurance, both nervous and muscular, but, having
drawn heavily against her reserve force, she paid the penalty. During
the early hou
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