He tried to cut steps before he
died. This is our way."

And he led Juanita rather hastily away. At nine o'clock they passed the
last shoulder and stood above Torre Garda, and the valley of the Wolf
lying in the sunlight below them. The road down the valley lay like a
yellow ribbon stretched across the broad breast of Nature.

Half an hour later they reached the pine woods, and heard Perro barking
on the terrace. The dog soon came panting to meet them, and not far
behind him Sarrion, whose face betrayed no surprise at perceiving
Juanita.

"You would have been safer at Pampeluna," he said with a keen glance into
her face.

"I am quite safe enough here, thank you," she answered, meeting his eyes
with a steady smile.

He asked Marcos whether he had felt his wounded shoulder or suffered from
so much exertion. And Juanita answered more fully than Marcos, giving
details which she had certainly not learnt from himself. A man having
once been nursed in sickness by a woman parts with some portion of his
personal liberty which she never relinquishes.

"It is the result of good nursing," said Sarrion, slipping his hand
inside Juanita's arm and walking by her side.

"It is the result of his great strength," she answered, with a glance
towards Marcos, which he did not perceive, for he was looking straight in
front of him.

"Uncle Ramon," said Juanita, an hour later when they were sitting on the
terrace together. She turned towards him suddenly with her shrewd little
smile. "Uncle Ramon--do you ever play Pelota?"

"Every Basque plays Pelota," he replied.

Juanita nodded and lapsed into reflective silence. She seemed to be
arranging something in her mind. Towards Sarrion, as towards Marcos, she
assumed at times an attitude of protection, and almost of patronage, as
if she knew much that was hidden from them and had access to some chamber
of life of which the door was closed to all men.

"Does it ever strike you," she said at length, "that in a game of
Pelota--supposing the ball to be endowed with a ... well a certain lower
form of intelligence, the intelligence of a mere woman, for instance--it
would be rather natural for it to wonder what on earth the game was
about? It might even think that it had a certain right to know what was
happening to it."

"Yes," admitted Sarrion, who having a quick and eager mind, understood
that Juanita was preparing to speak plainly. And at such times women
always speak more plainly than