'll pick up another horse at the next ranch," he offered casually by
way of explanation. "And we had better hit the trail. It's getting
late."

Wordlessly she followed, her eyes held, fascinated by the great, tall
bulk of him swinging on in front of her, carrying the heavy saddle with
as little care to its weight as if he had been entirely unconscious of
it, as no doubt such a man could be. She knew that already he had ridden
sixty miles today and that it was seven miles farther to the ranch where
he would get another horse. And yet there he strode on, swiftly, as
though he had rested all day and now were going to walk the matter of a
few yards.

She could not understand this man, whom, since she must, she followed.
Had he not told her there in the cabin when he had played at hiding his
identity from her, that he knew she was armed? And yet, encumbered with
the saddle upon his shoulder, his right hand carrying the bridle, he
turned his back square upon her with no glance to see if she were even
now covering him with her revolver. And had she not called him a coward,
thought him a coward? Was this the way a coward should act?

Again and again during those first minutes her hand crept to the bosom
of her dress. Did he know it? she wondered. Was he laughing at her,
knowing that she could not bring herself to the point of actually
shooting? But then, she might cover him, call to him that she would
shoot if he made her, and so force him to return the money he had
stolen.

"He would laugh at me," she told herself each time, her anger at him and
at herself rising higher and higher. "He would know that I could not
kill him. Not in cold blood, this way!"

So Buck Thornton strode on, grim in the savage silence which gripped
him, on through the shadows and out into the moonlight beyond the trees,
and she followed in silence. There were times when she hated him so that
she thought that she could shoot, shoot to kill. His very going with her
angered her. Was it not more play-acting, as insolent as anything he
could do, as insolent as his kissing her had been! She grew red and went
white over it. It was as though he were laughing into her face, making
sport of her, saying, "I am a gentleman, you see. I could stay here all
night, and you would have to stay with me! But I am not taking
advantage of you; I am walking seven miles over a hard trail, carrying a
pack like a mule, that you may sleep tonight under the same roof with
ano