e said
nothing. Without looking at her, de Spain drew her own rifle from her
horse's side, passed it into her hand and, moving over in front of the
horses, laid his left hand reassuringly on her waist again. At that
moment, little knowing what eyes were on him in the black fragments
ahead, Sassoon looked up. Then he rode more slowly forward. The color
returned to Nan's cheeks: "Do you want me to use this?" she murmured,
indicating the rifle.

"Certainly not. But if the others turn back, I may need it. Stay right
here with the horses. He will lose the trail in a minute now. When he
reaches the rock I'll go down and keep him from getting off his
horse--he won't fight from the saddle."

But with an instinct better than knowledge, Sassoon, like a
wolf scenting danger, stopped again. He scanned the broken and
forbidding hump in front, now less than a quarter of a mile
from him, questioningly. His eyes seemed to rove inquisitively
over the lava pile as if asking why a Morgan Gap pony had visited
it. In another moment he wheeled his horse and spurred rapidly
after his companions.

The two drew a deep breath. De Spain laughed: "What we don't know,
never hurts us." He drew Nan to him. Holding the rifle muzzle at arm's
length as the butt rested on the ground, she looked up from the
shoulder to which she was drawn: "What should you have done if he had
come?"

"Taken you to the Gap and then taken him to Sleepy Cat, where he
belongs."

"But, Henry, suppose----"

"There wouldn't have been any 'suppose.'"

"Suppose the others had come."

"With one rifle, here, a man could stand off a regiment. Nan, do you
know, you fit into my arm as if you were made for it?"

His courage was contagious. When he had tired her with fresh
importunities he unpinned her felt hat and held it out of reach while
he kissed and toyed with and disarranged her hair. In revenge, she
snatched from his pocket his little black memorandum-book and some
letters and read, or pretended to read them, and seizing her
opportunity she broke from him and ran with the utmost fleetness up
into the rocks.

In two minutes they had forgotten the episode almost as completely as
if it never had been. But when they left for home, they agreed they
would not meet there again. They knew that Sassoon, like a jackal,
would surely come back, and more than once, until he found out just
what that trail or any subsequent trail leading into the beds meant.
The lovers laughed t