eathing out wide rays of rainbow color that rose expanded over
earth and sky.

Then Genesmere spoke his first volunteered word to Lolita. "I didn't
shoot because I was afraid of hitting you," he said.

So now she too realized clearly. He had got off his horse above the
Tinaja to kill Luis during that kiss. Complete innocence had made her
stupid and slow.

"Are you going to eat?" she inquired.

"Oh yes. I guess I'll eat."

She set about the routine of fire-lighting and supper as if it had been
Uncle Ramon, and this evening like all evenings. He, not so easily, and
with small blunderings that he cursed, attended to his horse and mules,
coming in at length to sit against the wall where she was cooking.

"It is getting dark," said Lolita. So he found the lamp and lighted it,
and sat down again.

"I've never hurt a woman," he said, presently, the vision of his rifle's
white front sight held steady on the two below the ledge once more
flooding his brain. He spoke slowly.

"Then you have a good chance now," said Lolita, quickly, busy over her
cooking. In her Southern ears such words sounded a threat. It was not in
her blood to comprehend this Northern way of speaking and walking and
sitting, and being one thing outside and another inside.

"And I wouldn't hurt a woman"--he was hardly talking to her--"not if I
could think in time."

"Men do it," she said, with the same defiance. "But it makes talk."

"Talk's nothing to me," said Genesmere, flaming to fierceness. "Do I
care for opinions? Only my own." The fierceness passed from his face,
and he was remote from her again. Again he fell to musing aloud,
changing from Mexican to his mother-tongue. "I wouldn't want to have to
remember a thing like that." He stretched himself, and leaned his elbows
on his knees and his head in his hands, the yellow hair hiding his
fingers. She had often seen him do this when he felt lazy; it was not a
sign by which she could read a spiritual standstill, a quivering wreck
of faith and passion. "I have to live a heap of my life alone," the
lounger went on. "Journey alone. Camp alone. Me and my mules. And I
don't propose to have thoughts a man should be ashamed of." Lolita was
throwing a cloth over the table and straightening it. "I'm twenty-five,
and I've laid by no such thoughts yet. Church folks might say
different."

"It is ready," said Lolita, finishing her preparations.

He looked up, and, seeing the cloth and the places set, pulle