icament wherein I had landed. When I was bound to wrest free after
having done my utmost, she appeared to be twitting me because I would not
submit to farther use by her. I certainly had the right to extricate
myself in the only way left.

So I conned over and over, and my heart gnawed, and the acid of vexation
boiled in my throat, and despite the axle grease my arm nagged; while we
rode unspeaking, like some guilty pair through purgatory.

My lip had subsided; the pistol wound was superficial. Under different
circumstances the way would have been full of beauty. The high desert
stretched vastly, far, far, far before, behind, on either side, the
parched gauntness of its daytime aspect assuaged and evanescent. For the
moon, now risen, although on the wane, shed a light sufficient, whitening
the rocks and the scattered low shrubs, painting the land with sharp black
shadows, and enclosing us about with the mystery of great softly illumined
spaces into which silent forms vanished as if tempting us aside. Of
these--rabbits, wolves, animals only to be guessed--there were many, like
potential phantoms quickened by the touch of the moonbeams. Mule-back, we
twain towered, the sole intruders visible between the two elysians of
glorified earth and beatific sky.

The course was southward. After a time it seemed to me that we were
descending from the plateau; craunching gradually down a flank until, in a
mile or so, we were again upon the level, cutting through another basin
formed by the dried bed of an ancient lake whose waters had evaporated
into deposits of salt and soda.

At first the mules had plodded with ears pricked forward, and with sundry
snorts and stares as if they were seeing portents in the moonshine.
Eventually their imaginings dulled, so that they now moved careless of
where or why, their heads drooped, their minds devoted to achieving what
rest they might in the merely mechanical setting of hoof before hoof.

I could not but be aware of my companion. Her hair glinted paly, for she
rode bareheaded; her gown, tightened under her as she sat astride,
revealed the lines of her boyish limbs. She was a woman, in any guise; and
I being a man, protect her I should, as far as necessary. I found myself
wishing that we could upturn something pleasant to talk about; it was
ungracious, even wicked, to ride thus side by side through peace and
beauty, with lips closed and war in the heart, and final parting as the
main desire.