ping me, and I
stopped. Yet the smile had not left her face as she said, in a tone of
sweet confidence:

"Let's be above-the-board-honest with each other in all things, Jack; it
makes for long friendships, Echochee says--and there's nothing finer,
anyhow, than to freely admit a mistake. So it wasn't your fault any more
than mine; we've both been very naughty spirits, and we mustn't be
again." She paused, adding: "After all, I suppose it does make our
secret world just a little----"

I waited, and when she did not continue, asked:

"A little what?"

Still she hesitated.

"Be honest," I warned.

She smiled again, looking at me frankly.

"Well, a little sweeter, to feel that we're equally to blame; that
that's why we can't ever go there again."

"Eden up-to-date?" I laughed.

"Y-yes, I suppose so; and the flaming sword has smote us, so we have to
be circumspect forever and ever."

"But Eve wasn't! The flaming sword didn't phaze her a minute!"

"I've had lots of time to improve on Eve," she replied archly.

"That's God's truth," I cried.

A rippling laugh burst from her lips--a ringing, happy laugh that was
heard, I swear, in listening heaven. She seemed obsessed by a strange
excitement--perhaps like my own, that sprang from a deep, inordinate
sense of pleasure.

We were getting on toward the fort, walking inside the edge of our Oasis
near that place where the fallen palms lay in a confused tangle. I had
her hand and was helping her over this network of logs when she suddenly
sprang before me with dazzling quickness; facing outward, and holding
back her arms to keep me in check.

It was an act instinctive of protection, yet scarcely had I time to
wonder at it when a whining, crackling sound, that might have come from
anywhere, dashed past our heads. Men who have heard a high-power bullet
splitting the air do not forget the sound, which is as quickly
recognized a second time as the rattling of a diamond-back.

Immediately following it came the crack of a rifle, and guided by this I
saw, above the prairie grass four hundred yards away, the head and
shoulders of a man. At that instant he fired again.

CHAPTER XXII

I LOVE YOU

To be transported instantly from the essence of happiness to the brink
of tragedy--and a tragedy wherein the whole of one's world goes
tottering--engenders a confusion of mind that for a moment leaves one
helpless. And thus it was that the second bullet flashed by us bef