ith also a beginning of envy and hunger. But there was still another
thing even more indefinable. It centered in the word "home," which she
knew neither in French nor Spanish, but which she came to know now, as
its meaning grew upon her. It was more than a "maison" or a "casa," or a
"chez nous." It was a manner of temple. And the high priest there was a
grim lord. How very grim, indeed! There was no compromise, no blinking,
no midway gilded dais between the marriage altar and the basest filth.
As grim, this was, as that original Puritanism which has become a
synonym of American backbone. Grim, yes; but the woman there, where the
high priest blinked not, was a divinity. She was a divinity in the
tenderest and most devoted sense of the word. And the Puritanism was
purity enshrined, as a simple matter of course. The longing, if only to
know more of this odd country, rose in her mysteriously, and stronger
and stronger.

When on one occasion she went back to the coach, she found that Berthe
also was enjoying the change to horseback. Jacqueline was glad of it.
Now she could be alone, and she believed that she wanted to think. But
she could not pin down what she wanted to think about; because, no
doubt, there was so very much. Instead, she looked vacantly at the Storm
Centre's cartridge belt and pistols on the seat in front of her. They
were grim, too, these playthings of a boy.

Dupin had left the weapons with Ney, back at the hacienda, and Ney had
turned them over to Jacqueline as to the real strategic chief of the
expedition. And Jacqueline had kept them, perhaps to look at, perhaps
because of a whim that a prisoner should not be armed. She liked to hear
Driscoll mourn for them, not knowing where they were, and she held back
the surprise as one lingers before an anticipated pleasure. She picked
up the great, black revolvers with a woman's fascinated respect for the
harsh, eternal male of her species, who is primeval and barbaric yet,
and ever will be, to hold his mate his very own. Her touch was gingerly,
but there was a caress in her fingers on the ugly things.

She lifted the belt. How heavy of metal it was! Idly, she thought she
would count the leaden missiles. When finally she laid the belt aside, a
bullet remained in her lap. It had fallen there out of its shell.
Starting to fit the bullet in again, she suddenly dropped both bullet
and cartridge. Her hands trembled. This particular shell contained no
powder. But it c