clear-headed.

"Throw the packs, Bill," said Kells.

Another fire was kindled and preparations made toward a noonday meal.
Bill and Halloway appeared loquacious, and inclined to steal glances at
Joan when Kells could not notice. Halloway whistled a Dixie tune. Then
Bill took advantage of the absence of Kells, who went down to the brook,
and he began to leer at Joan and make bold eyes at her. Joan appeared
not to notice him, and thereafter averted; her gaze. The men chuckled.

"She's the proud hussy! But she ain't foolin' me. I've knowed a heap of
wimmen." Whereupon Halloway guffawed, and between them, in lower tones,
they exchanged mysterious remarks. Kells returned with a bucket of
water.

"What's got into you men?" he queried.

Both of them looked around, blusteringily innocent.

"Reckon it's the same that's ailin' you," replied Bill. He showed that
among wild, unhampered men how little could inflame and change.

"Boss, it's the onaccustomed company," added Halloway, with a
conciliatory smile. "Bill sort of warms up. He jest can't help it. An'
seein' what a thunderin' crab he always is, why I'm glad an' welcome."

Kells vouchsafed no reply to this and, turning away, continued his
tasks. Joan had a close look at his eyes and again she was startled.
They were not like eyes, but just gray spaces, opaque openings, with
nothing visible behind, yet with something terrible there.

The preparations for the meal went on, somewhat constrainedly on the
part of Bill and Halloway, and presently were ended. Then the men
attended to it with appetites born of the open and of action. Joan sat
apart from them on the bank of the brook, and after she had appeased
her own hunger she rested, leaning back in the shade of an alderbush.
A sailing shadow crossed near her, and, looking up, she saw an eagle
flying above the ramparts of the canon. Then she had a drowsy spell, but
she succumbed to it only to the extent of closing her eyes. Time dragged
on. She would rather have been in the saddle. These men were leisurely,
and Kells was provokingly slow. They had nothing to do with time but
waste it. She tried to combat the desire for hurry, for action; she
could not gain anything by worry. Nevertheless, resignation would
not come to her and her hope began to flag. Something portended
evil--something hung in the balance.

The snort and tramp of horses roused her, and upon sitting up she saw
the men about to pack and saddle again. Kells