n
there be in their going?"

Driscoll shoved him aside and placed himself at the head of Jacqueline's
horse. "You had better risk the water, miss," he said quietly.

"My good sir," she replied, clear and cold, "I commend your prudence, in
making certain, before you dared touch my bridle-rein, that neither of
the two gentlemen were here."

Din Driscoll swung on his heel. "Damned!" he murmured, and he pronounced
the "n" and the "d" thoroughly, to make the word adequate if possible.
"Lord, I believe I feel like a closed incident! And to think, Demijohn,"
he went on as he busied himself about his horse, "to think that it's the
first and only time we've ever seen trouble coming and tried to keep out
of it."

But the trouble might appear now, he had done what he could. The thought
brightened him, and he patted his short ribs musingly. There was a
friendly protuberance there on either side. His belt sagged
comfortingly. He opened the pack which he was tying with his blanket
behind his saddle, and from it he filled with cartridges the pockets of
his rough cape coat.

By now the caravan was passing him. The burros, like square-shelled
monstrosities with ears, were settling into a steady trot. Their
blanketed arrieros ran beside them and prodded, and were in turn prodded
by the fretful Murguia. Then Jacqueline rode by on an ambling little
mountain-climber. She had forgotten his presence. This was not a pose
with the Marquise d'Aumerle; she had, really. But her little Breton maid
coming behind timidly drew rein. Driscoll looked and saw in the moving
yellow torchlights that her face was white. A thing like that somehow
alters a man's attitude. "W'y, child," he exclaimed, "what's----"

"Monsi--senor," she said hastily, in pathetic and pretty broken Spanish,
"you, oh, you will not leave us! In the mercy of heaven, tell me that
you will not! Ah, seigneur," she sobbed, "mademoiselle will yet lead us
to our death!"

"Berthe," mademoiselle at that instant called, "oh you little ninny, are
you coming ever?"

The maid obeyed. "Just the same," she sighed, "God bless her!"

"And did I," Driscoll had begun angrily, but she was already gone, and
he finished it to himself, "did I once intend to leave you?"

He leaped astride his buckskin horse, who trotted with him briskly to
the head of the caravan. Behind was Anastasio Murguia, a quaint
combination of silk hat, shawl, and ranchero saddle. The two Frenchwomen
followed, and behind