to its scabbard. Then he smiled.

"You have a pretty trick," he commented, relaxing. "Some day I'd like to
test it out again. Just now I pass. Madam, are you coming?"

"You know I'm not," she uttered clearly.

"Your choice of company is hardly to your credit," he sneered. "Or, I
should say, to your education. Saintliness does not set well upon you,
madam. Your clothes are ill-fitting already. Of your two champions----"

And here I realized that I was standing out, one foot advanced, my fists
foolishly doubled, my presence a useless factor.

"--I recommend the gentleman from New York as more to your tastes. But you
are going of your own free will. You will always be my wife. You can't get
away from that, you devil. I shall expect you in Benton, for I have the
hunch that your little flight will fetch you back pretty well tamed, to
the place where damaged goods are not so heavily discounted." He ignored
Daniel and turned upon me. "As for you," he said, "I warn you you are
playing against a marked deck. You will find fists a poor hand. Ladies and
gentlemen, good-morning." With that he strode straight for his horse,
climbed aboard (a trifle awkwardly by reason of his one arm disabled) and
galloped, granting us not another glance.

Card shark and desperado that he was, his consummate aplomb nobody could
deny, except Daniel, now capering and swaggering and twirling his
revolver.

"I showed him. I made him take water. I 'laow I'm 'bout the best man with
a six-shooter in these hyar parts."

"Ketch up and stretch out," Captain Adams ordered, disregarding. "We've no
more time for foolery."

My eyes met My Lady's. She smiled a little ruefully, and I responded,
shamed by the poor role I had borne. With that still jubilating lout to
the fore, certainly I cut small figure.

This night we made camp at Rawlins' Springs, some twelve miles on. The
day's march had been, so to speak, rather pensive; for while there were
the rough jokes and the talking back and forth, it seemed as though the
scene of early morning lingered in our vista. The words of Montoyo had
scored deeply, and the presence of our supernumerary laid a kind of
incubus, like an omen of ill luck, upon us. Indeed the prophecies darkly
uttered showed the current of thought.

"It's a she Jonah we got. Sure a woman the likes o' her hain't no place in
a freightin' outfit. We're off on the wrong fut," an Irishman declared to
wagging of heads. "Faith, she's enough to set