muttering:
"Dynamite!" seized the beast by the bridle, forced its head around despite
the girl's objections and incoherent pleadings--some phrases of which sank
home, but were disregarded.

"Don't!" she cried, fiercely, as he struck the animal with his fist to
accelerate its movements. She was still crying to him, wildly,
hysterically, as he got the animal's head around and slapped it sharply on
the hip, his pistol crashing at its heels.

The frightened animal clattered over the back trail, Trevison running
after it. He reached Nigger, flung himself into the saddle, and raced
after Levins, who was already far down the level, following Rosalind's
horse. At a turn in the butte he came upon them both, their horses halted,
the girl berating Levins, the man laughing lowly at her.

"Don't!" she cried to Trevison as he rode up. "Please, Trevison--don't let
_that_ happen! It's criminal; it's outlawry!"

"Too late," he said grimly, and rode close to her to grasp the bridle of
her horse. Standing thus, they waited--an age, to the girl, in reality
only a few seconds. Then the deep, solemn silence of the night was split
by a hollow roar, which echoed and re-echoed as though a thousand thunder
storms had centered over their heads. A vivid flash, extended, effulgent,
lit the sky, the earth rocked, the canyon walls towering above them seemed
to sway and reel drunkenly. The girl covered her face with her hands.
Another blast smote the night, reverberating on the heels of the other;
there followed another and another, so quickly that they blended; then
another, with a distinct interval between. Then a breathless, unreal calm,
through which distant echoes rumbled; then a dead silence, shattered at
last by a heavy, distant clatter, as though myriad big hailstones were
falling on a pavement. And then another silence--the period of reeling
calm after an earthquake.

"O God!" wailed the girl; "it is horrible!"

"You've got to get out of here--the whole of Manti will be here in a few
minutes! Come on!"

He urged Nigger farther down the canyon, and up a rocky slope that brought
them to the mesa. The girl was trembling, her breath coming gaspingly. He
faced her as they came to a halt, pityingly, with a certain dogged
resignation in his eyes.

"What brought you here? Who told you we were here?" he asked, gruffly.

"It doesn't matter!" She faced him defiantly. "You have outraged the laws
of your country tonight! I hope you are punished