t to, Nan. Don't give it a
thought."

"Every corner is watched," she repeated anxiously.

"But I tell you I'll dodge them, Nan."

"They have rifles."

"They won't get a chance to use them on me."

"I don't know what you'll think of me--" He heard the troubled note in
her voice.

"What do you mean?"

She began to unbutton her jacket. Throwing back the revers she felt
inside around her waist, unfastened after a moment and drew forth a
leathern strap. She laid it in de Spain's hands. "This is yours," she
said in a whisper.

He felt it questioningly, hurriedly, then with amazement. "Not a
cartridge-belt!" he exclaimed.

"It's your own."

"Where--?" She made no answer. "Where did you get it, Nan?" he
whispered hurriedly.

"Where you left it."

"How?" She was silent. "When?"

"To-night."

"Have you been to Calabasas and back to-night?"

"Everybody but Sassoon is in the chase," she replied uneasily--as if
not knowing what to say, or how to say it. "They said you should never
leave the Gap alive--they are ready with traps everywhere. I didn't
know what to do. I couldn't bear--after what--you did for me
to-night--to think of your being shot down like a dog, when you were
only trying to get away."

"I wouldn't have had you take a ride like that for forty belts!"

"McAlpin showed it to me the last time I was at the stage barn,
hanging where you left it." He strapped the cartridges around him.

"You should never have taken that ride for it. But since you have--"
He had drawn his revolver from his waistband. He broke it now and held
it out. "Load it for me, Nan."

"What do you mean?"

"Put four more cartridges in it yourself. Except for your cartridge,
the gun is empty. When you do that you will know none of them ever
will be used against your own except to protect my life. And if you
have any among them whose life ought to come ahead of mine--name him,
or them, now. Do as I tell you--load the gun."

He took hold of her hands and, in spite of her refusals, made her do
his will. He guided her hand to draw the cartridges, one after
another, from his belt, and waited for her to slip them in the
darkness into the empty cylinder, to close the breech, and hand the
gun back.

"Now, Nan," he said, "you know me. You may yet have doubts--they will
all die. You will hear many stories about me--but you will say: 'I put
the cartridges in his revolver with my own hands, and I know he won't
abuse the means of defen