said
of her that she should have been a boy.

Night settled down black. A pale, narrow cloud, marked by a train of
stars, extended across the dense blue sky. The wind moaned in the cedars
and roared in the replenished camp-fire. Sparks flew away into the
shadows. And on the puffs of smoke that blew toward her came the sweet,
pungent odor of burning cedar. Coyotes barked off under the brush, and
from away on the ridge drifted the dismal defiance of a wolf.

Camp-life was no new thing to Joan. She had crossed the plains in
a wagon-train, that more than once had known the long-drawn yell of
hostile Indians. She had prospected and hunted in the mountains with her
uncle, weeks at a time. But never before this night had the wildness,
the loneliness, been so vivid to her.

Roberts was on his knees, scouring his oven with wet sand. His big,
shaggy head nodded in the firelight. He seemed pondering and thick and
slow. There was a burden upon him. The man Bill and his companion lay
back against stones and conversed low. Kells stood up in the light of
the blaze. He had a pipe at which he took long pulls and then sent up
clouds of smoke. There was nothing imposing in his build or striking in
his face, at that distance; but it took no second look to see here was
a man remarkably out of the ordinary. Some kind of power and intensity
emanated from him. From time to time he appeared to glance in Joan's
direction; still, she could not be sure, for his eyes were but shadows.
He had cast aside his coat. He wore a vest open all the way, and a
checked soft shirt, with a black tie hanging untidily. A broad belt
swung below his hip and in the holster was a heavy gun. That was a
strange place to carry a gun, Joan thought. It looked awkward to her.
When he walked it might swing round and bump against his leg. And he
certainly would have to put it some other place when he rode.

"Say, have you got a blanket for that girl?" asked Kells, removing his
pipe from his lips to address Roberts.

"I got saddle-blankets," responded Roberts. "You see, we didn't expect
to be caught out."

"I'll let you have one," said Kells, walking away from the fire. "It
will be cold." He returned with a blanket, which he threw to Roberts.

"Much obliged," muttered Roberts.

"I'll bunk by the fire," went on the other, and with that he sat down
and appeared to become absorbed in thought.

Roberts brought the borrowed blanket and several saddle-blankets over to
wh