lid
helpless and scrambling along the face of a flat rock. De Spain,
leaping from her back, steadied her trembling and looked underfoot.
The mare had struck the rock of the upper lava bed. Drawing his
revolver, he fired signal shots from where he stood. It could not be
far, he knew, from the junction of the two great desert trails--the
Calabasas road and the Gap road. He felt sure Nan could not have got
much north of this, for he had ridden in desperation to get abreast of
or beyond her, and if she were south, where, he asked, in the name of
God, could she be?

He climbed again into the saddle--the cold was gripping his
limbs--and, watching the rocky landmarks narrowly, tried to circle the
dead waste of the half-buried flow. With chilled, awkward fingers he
filled the revolver again and rode on, discharging it every minute,
and listening--hoping against hope for an answer. It was when he had
almost completed, as well as he could compute, the wide circuit he had
set out on, that a faint shot answered his continuing signals.

With the sound of that shot and those that followed it his courage all
came back. But he had yet to trace through the confusion of the wind
and the blinding snow the direction of the answering reports.

Hither and thither he rode, this way and that, testing out the
location of the slowly repeated shots, and signalling at intervals in
return. Slowly and doggedly he kept on, shooting, listening, wheeling,
and advancing until, as he raised his revolver to fire it again, a cry
close at hand came out of the storm. It was a woman's voice borne on
the wind. Riding swiftly to the left, a horse's outline revealed
itself at moments in the driving snow ahead.

De Spain cried out, and from behind the furious curtain heard his
name, loudly called. He pushed his stumbling horse on. The dim outline
of a second horse, the background of a wagon, a storm-beaten man--all
this passed his eyes unheeded. They were bent on a girlish figure
running toward him as he slid stiffly from the saddle. The next
instant Nan was in his arms.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE TRUTH

With the desperation of a joy born of despair she laid her burning
cheek hysterically against his cheek. She rained kisses on his
ice-crusted brows and snow-beaten eyes. Her arms held him rigidly. He
could not move nor speak till she would let him. Transformed, this
mountain girl who gave herself so shyly, forgot everything. Her words
crowded on his ea