to
get off free?"

"Of course."

"And you'd sooner have hung than tell us?"

"Yes."

Sinclair sighed. "Maybe I've said this before, but I got to say it
ag'in: Jig, you plumb beat me!" He brushed his hand across his
forehead. "S'pose it'd been done! S'pose I had let 'em go ahead and
string you up! They'd have been a terrible bad time ahead for them
seven men. We'd all have been grabbed and lynched. A woman!"

He put the word off by itself. Then he was surprised to hear her
laughing softly. Now that he knew, it was all woman, that voice.

"It wasn't really courage, Riley. After you'd said half a dozen words I
knew you were square, and that you knew I was innocent. So I didn't
worry very much--except just after you'd sentenced me to hang!"

"Don't go back to that! I sure been a plumb fool. But why would you
have gone ahead and let that hanging happen?"

"Because I had rather die than be known, except to you."

"You leave me out."

"I'd trust you to the end of everything, Riley."

"I b'lieve you would, Jig--I honest believe you would! Heaven knows
why."

"Because."

"That ain't a reason."

"A very good woman's reason. For one thing you've let me come along
when you know that I'm a weight, and you're in danger. But you don't
know what it means if I go back. You can't know. I know it's wrong and
cowardly for me to stay and imperil you, but I _am_ a coward, and I'm
afraid to go back!"

"Hush up," murmured Sinclair. "Hush up, girl. Is they anybody asking
you to go back? But you don't really figure on hanging out here with me
in the mountains, me having most of the gents in these parts out
looking for my scalp?"

"If you think I won't be such an encumbrance that I'll greatly endanger
you, Riley."

"H'm," muttered Sinclair. "I'll take that chance, but they's another
thing."

"Well?"

"It ain't exactly nacheral and reasonable for a girl to go around in
the mountains with a man."

She fired up at that, sitting straight, with the fire flaring suddenly
in her face through the change of position.

"I've told you that I trust you, Riley. What do I care about the
opinion of the world? Haven't they hounded me? Oh, I despise them!"

"H'm," said the cowpuncher again.

He was, indeed, so abashed by this outbreak that he merely stole a
glance at her face and then studied the fire again.

"Does this gent Cartwright tie up with your story?"

All the fire left her. "Yes," she whispered.

He felt that she w