ing-place.

They could hardly slip from their saddles fast enough to reach each
other's arms--Nan, trim as a model in fresh khaki, trying with a
handkerchief hardly larger than a postage-stamp to wipe the flecks of
dust from her pink cheeks, while de Spain, between dabs, covered them
with importunate greetings. Looking engrossed into each other's eyes,
and both, in their eagerness, talking at once, they led their horses
into hiding and sat down to try to tell all that had happened since
their parting. Wars and rumors of wars, feuds and raidings, fights and
pursuits were no more to them than to babes in the woods. All that
mattered to them--sitting or pacing together and absorbed, in the path
of the long-cold volcanic stream buried in the shifting sands of the
desert--was that they should clasp each other's clinging hands, listen
each to the other's answering voice, look unrestrained into each
other's questioning eyes.

They met in both the lava beds--the upper lay between the Gap and
town--more than once. And one day came a scare. They were sitting on
a little ledge well up in the rocks where de Spain could overlook the
trail east and west, and were talking about a bungalow some day to be
in Sleepy Cat, when they saw men riding from the west toward
Calabasas. There were three in the party, one lagging well behind. The
two men leading, Nan and de Spain made out to be Gale Morgan and Page.
They saw the man coming on behind stop his horse and lean forward, his
head bent over the trail. He was examining the sand and halted quite a
minute to study something. Both knew what he was studying--the
hoof-prints of Nan's pony heading toward the lava. Nan shrank back and
with de Spain moved a little to where they could watch the intruder
without being seen. Nan whispered first: "It's Sassoon." De Spain
nodded. "What shall we do?" breathed Nan.

"Nothing yet," returned her lover, watching the horseman, whose eyes
were still fixed on the pony's trail, but who was now less than a half
mile away and riding straight toward them.

De Spain, his eyes on the danger and his hand laid behind Nan's waist,
led the way guardedly down to where their horses stood. Nan, needing
no instructions for the emergency, took the lines of the horses, and
de Spain, standing beside his own horse, reached his right hand over
in front of the pommel and, regarding Sassoon all the while, drew his
rifle slowly from its scabbard. The blood fled Nan's cheeks. Sh