rly than any that had gone
before, cost them their lives. But what still lay ahead of the two
justified in de Spain's mind what he was doing. He acted deliberately
in risking the exposure of their position to unfriendly eyes far
distant.

CHAPTER XXVII

EL CAPITAN

The mutterings above the mountains now grew rapidly louder and while
the two hovered over the fire, a thunder-squall, rolling wildly down
the eastern slope, burst over the Gap. Its sudden fury put aside for a
time all question of moving, and Nan's face took on a grave expression
as she looked in the firelight at her companion, thinking of how far
such a storm might imperil their situation, how far cut off their
already narrow chance of escape.

De Spain--reclining close beside her, looking into the depths of her
eyes as the flickering blaze revealed them, drying himself in their
warmth and light, eating and drinking of their presence on the
mountainside alone with him, and pledged to him, his protection, and
his fortunes against the world--apparently thought of nothing beyond
the satisfaction of the moment. The wind drove the storm against the
west side of the huge granite peak under which they were sheltered and
gave them no present trouble in their slender recess. But Nan knew
even better than her companion the fickle fury of a range storm, and
understood uncomfortably well how a sudden shift might, at any moment,
lay their entire path open to its fierceness. She warned de Spain they
must be moving, and, freshened by the brief rest, they set out toward
El Capitan.

Their trail lay along granite levels of comparatively good going and,
fleeing from the squall, they had covered more than half the distance
that separated them from the cliff, when a second thunder-storm,
seeming to rush in from the desert, burst above their heads. Drenched
with rain, they were forced to draw back under a projecting rock. In
another moment the two storms, meeting in the Gap, crashed together.
Bolt upon bolt of lightning split the falling sheets of water, and
thunder, exploding in their faces, stunned and deafened them.

Mountain peaks, played on by the wild light, leaped like spectres out
of the black, and granite crags, searched by blazing shafts, printed
themselves in ghostly flames on the retina; thunder, searching
unnumbered gorges, echoed beneath the sharper crashes in one long,
unending roll, and far out beyond the mountains the flooded desert
tossed on a d