but a great event! Naturally, quiet, desert nerves must still be
quivering after the strain. Inevitably, they would not calm instantly,
particularly as she had taken coffee for supper. She was wroth about the
coffee, though she had taken less than usual that evening.

She heard the clock strike one; she heard it strike two, and three. And
he, on his part--this Sir Chaps who had come so abruptly into her life
and evidently set old passions afire in her father's mind--of course he
was sleeping! That was the exasperating phlegm of him. He would sleep on
horseback, riding toward the edge of a precipice!

"A smile and a square chin--and dreamy vagueness," she kept repeating.

The details of the scene in the store recurred with a vividness which
counting a flock of sheep as they went over a stile or any other trick
for outwitting insomnia could not drive from her mind. Then Pete Leddy's
final look of defiance and Jack Wingfield's attitude in answer rose out
of the pantomime in merciless clearness.

All the indecisiveness of the interchange of guesses and rehearsed
impressions was gone. She got a message, abruptly and convincingly. This
incident of the pass was not closed. An ultimatum had been exchanged.
Death lay between these two men. Jack had accepted the issue.

The clock struck four and five. Before it struck again daylight would
have come; and before night came again, what? To lie still in the torment
of this new experience of wakefulness with its peculiar, half-recognized
forebodings, had become unbearable. She rose and dressed and went down
stairs softly, candle in hand, aware only that every agitated fibre of
her being was whipping her to action which should give some muscular
relief from the strain of her overwrought faculties. She would go into
the garden and walk there, waiting for sunrise. But at the edge of the
path she was arrested by a shadow coming from the servants'
sleeping-quarters. It was Ignacio, the little Indian who cared for her
horse, ran errands, and fought garden bugs for her--Ignacio, the
note-bearer.

"Senorita! senorita!" he exclaimed, and his voice, vibrant with something
stronger than surprise, had a certain knowing quality, as if he
understood more than he dared to utter. "Senorita, you rise early!"

"Sometimes one likes to look at the morning stars," she remarked.

But there were no stars; only a pale moon, as Ignacio could see
for himself.

"Senorita, that young man who was here a