m?"

And Nash snarled in return: "If there was a chance, don't you think I'd
take it? Don't you see I'm givin' up everythin' that amounts to a damn
with me? Tenderfoot? He may act Eastern and he may talk Eastern, but
he's got Western blood. There ain't no other way of explainin' it. And
Drew? He didn't have no gun when he busted the back of old Piotto. I
say, there's two men, armed or not, and between 'em they can do more'n
all of us could dream of. Boys, are you comin'?"

They went. The wounded were dragged to their feet and hoisted to their
horses, groaning. At a slow walk they started down through the trees.
Evening fell; the shadows slanted about them. They moved faster--at a
trot--at a gallop. They were like men flying from a certain ruin. Beyond
the margin of the bright lake they fled and lost themselves in the vast,
secret heart of the mountain-desert.

CHAPTER XLI

SALLY WEEPS

All that day, in a silence broken only by murmurs and side glances,
Anthony and Sally Fortune moved about the old house from window to
window, and from crack to crack, keeping a steady eye on the commanding
rocks above. In one of those murmurs they made their resolution. When
night came they would rush the rocks, storm them from the front, and
take their chance with what might follow. But the night promised to give
but little shelter to their stalking.

For in the late afternoon a broad moon was already climbing up from the
east; the sky was cloudless; there was a threat of keen, revealing
moonshine for the night. Only desperation could make them attempt to
storm the rock, but by the next morning, at the latest, reinforcements
were sure to come, and then their fight would be utterly hopeless.

So when the light of the sun mellowed, grew yellow and slant, and the
shadows sloped from tree to tree, the two became more silent still,
drawn and pale of face, waiting. Anthony at a window, Sally at a crack
which made an excellent loophole, they remained moveless.

It was she who noted a niche which might serve as a loophole for one of
the posse, and she fired at it, aiming low. The clang of the bullet
against rock echoes clearly back to her, like the soft chime of a sheep
bell from the peaceful distance. Then, as if in answer to her shot,
around the edge of the rocks appeared a moving rag of white which grew
into William Drew, bearing above his head the white sign of the truce.

In her astonishment she looked to Bard. He was qui