h Turrentine!--Good-bye, honey--you mustn't be seen with me.
If Blatch is here I've got to find and face him. You see that, don't
you?--You understand."

And he turned and left her so. Oh, these men, with their quarrels and
their nice points of honour--while a woman's heart bleeds under the
scuffling feet!

She watched him hurry to the train, his staggering step advertising how
unfit he was for any such attempt, watched him mount the platform where
she had seen the man that looked like Blatch; and then the conductor
swung his lantern, the wheels began to revolve, she half cried out, and
Selim at the end of his patience, bolted with her and never stopped
running till he had topped the rise above the village.

Here, with some ado, she got him quieted, brought to a standstill, got
off and tightened the girth, for the saddle was slipping dangerously. She
climbed on once more, mounting from a fallen tree, and was moving again
up the trail when, down toward Garyville, someone called her name.

"Judith!"

She did not turn her head. She knew to whom the voice belonged. As he
rode up to her:

"What you doin' here, Blatch Turrentine?" she demanded fiercely, "an'
what'll the boys say to you for slippin' away from 'em to-night?"

He took her inferred knowledge of all his enterprises without a word of
comment. Bringing his mule up closer to her where she sat on Selim he
answered:

"The boys know whar I'm at. We got word last evenin' that the man I sell
to was waitin' for me in Garyville. He don't know nobody but me in the
business, and nobody but me could do the arrent. I hauled a load down,
an' I would have been back in plenty time, ef I hadn't met you and
Bonbright right thar whar that old Cherokee trail comes into the
Garyville road."

Judith started, her face burned in the darkness, but she said nothing.
Blatch peered curiously at her as he went on:

"I reckon you never took notice of the waggon that was under the bluff
thar by the turn, but that was my waggon, and I was a-settin' on it. I
wheeled myse'f round, when I seed 'twas Bonbright, and follered you two
down to Garyville, and put up my mules."

Again he peered sharply at her.

"Jude," as she still sat silent, "I won't tell the boys what kept me--I
won't tell them nary thing about you. I'll just let on that I happened to
see Bonbright at Garyville."

"You tell what you're a mind to," said Judith bitterly. "I don't keer
what you say."

Blatchley took the