means, ride with us." He turned
toward Sylvia, plainly expecting her to second the invitation.

"It will be much pleasanter," she said; though it seemed to Harboro that
her words lacked heartiness. She was busying herself with the little
package at her pommel--old Antonia's _rebozo_.

"And you must all remember that there's one more latch-string out here at
the Quemado," said Wayne, "whenever you feel inclined to ride this way."

They were off then. The sound of violins and the shuffle of feet became
faint, and the last gay voice died in the distance. Only now and then,
when the horses' feet fell in unison, there drifted after them the note of
a violin--like a wind at night in an old casement. And then the three
riders were presently aware of being quite alone on a windless waste, with
a sentinel yucca standing on a distant height here and there between them
and the descending moon, and distant groups of mesquite wreathing
themselves in the silver mist of early morning. It had been a little past
midnight when they left the Quemado.

Sylvia, riding between the two men, was so obviously under some sort of
constraint that Harboro sought to arouse her. "I'm afraid you overtaxed
yourself, Sylvia," he suggested. "It's all been pleasant, but
rather--heroic." It was an effort for him to speak lightly and cheerfully.
The long ride out to the Quemado was a thing to which he was not
accustomed, and the merrymaking had seemed to him quite monotonous after
an hour or two. Even the midnight supper had not seemed a particularly gay
thing to him. He was not quite a youth any more, and he had never been
young, it seemed to him, in the way in which these desert folk were young.
Joy seemed to them a kind of intoxication--as if it were not to be
indulged in save at long intervals.

"I didn't overtax myself," replied Sylvia. "The ending of things is never
very cheerful. I suppose that's what I feel just now--as if, at the end,
things don't seem quite worth while, after all."

Harboro held to his point. "You _are_ tired," he insisted.

Runyon interposed cheerfully. "And there are always the beginnings," he
said. "We're just beginning a new day and a fine ride." He looked at
Harboro as if inviting support and added, in a lower tone: "And I'd like
to think we were beginning a pleasant acquaintance."

Harboro nodded and his dark eyes beamed with pleasure. It had seemed to
him that this final clause was the obvious thing for Runyon to sa