red him to
himself. His face went almost purple, his cold eyes blazed. "Say," he
cried roughly, "what are you driving at, anyway? Come down to cases
now." He caught her by the wrist. "What did you let me come up here for?
Just to make a monkey of me? Have you been treasuring spite against me
all these months, and is this your way of getting even?"

She dragged her hand away from him and stepped back. "I let you come, if
you want to know it, because I thought I was in love with you. Lord,
think of it!" she laughed drearily. "I haven't fooled you any worse than
I have myself."

He rubbed his hand across his eyes. "It ain't true," he said loudly,
positively, defiantly.

"Hush," she exclaimed, darting forward. "What was that?" There was a
sound as if some one had trod the underbrush not many feet away. She
listened intently a moment, a wild fear at her heart that Seagreave
might have returned unexpectedly. It was probably some animal, for there
was no further sound. "Oh," she cried, in involuntary relief, "it must
have been Jose!"

A gleam came into his eyes, a light of triumph as at the remembrance of
some potent weapon of which he had been carelessly forgetful. "And who
is Jose?" he asked.

She lifted her startled gaze to his, the question recalled to her her
own unthinking speech. "Oh, one of the miners," she said indifferently.

He knew her too well to fancy that he could trap her into any new
admissions, and he had no wish to arouse her suspicions. Therefore he
dropped the subject, especially as he felt fully answered.

He leaned against a tree and, drawing a cigar from his pocket, lighted
it, although the hand with which he did so trembled. "I guess some
explanations are in order between you and me," he said. "I guess it's
about time that you began to get it into your head that you can't make a
fool of me all the time. I'm ready and willing to admit that there was
some excuse for you down in the desert. I made a bad break there, which
I'm freely conceding was no way to treat a lady. But that don't explain
or excuse the way you've treated me this morning," he laughed bitterly.
"There's no way to explain it unless living here in the mountains has
gone to your head or unless there's another man. Is there?" his eyes
pierced her. "Is there?"

She looked back at him with a hard, inscrutable smile, but she did not
answer.

Another man! He couldn't, wouldn't believe it. Why, it was only
yesterday that they two had