m mass, the twin notches that marked the
Pass of the Goats hardly discernible against the sky. They crossed a
white road, unfenced but evidently a main source of travel though now
deserted.

"County line runs plumb down the middle of the road," announced Sandy.
"There's the lights of Caroca blinkin' away to the left. Too bad we
missed the train. Sleepy?"

"Some," she admitted.

"Me too," lied Sandy companionably.

Coming down from the mesa he had talked with her about Barbara Redding,
how welcome she would make Molly and what she would do for her. Molly
had listened silently. Only once she had spoken.

"Why didn't you marry her 'stead of that Redding?" she asked.

Sandy laughed, whole-heartedly.

"Don't believe she'd have had me. Never figgered on marryin' anybody.
I'm a privateerin' sort of a person, Molly, sailin' under my own colors,
that means. I've allus had the saddle itch till Mormon an' Sam an' me
settled down to the ranch. Never had time enough in one place to fool
round the gels."

"Sam says yo're woman-shy?" queried Molly.

"Mebbe I am. But it ain't the way a dawg is gun-shy. Must be the
horrible example Mormon's set up."

"Don't you like wimmen?"

"Sure do. Admire 'em pow'ful. Never met the one I'd want to tie to,
that's all, Molly."

"None of 'em pritty enough?"

"Pritty? Shucks! Looks don't count so all-fired much. The woman I most
admired was the wife of ol' Pete Holden, a desert prospector an'
drifter, like yore dad, Molly. She was old an' tough an' wiry, like he
was. I don't figger she'd ever have taken a blue ribbon in a beauty
contest, but she was like first-grade linoleum, the pattern wore clean
through an' the stuff was top quality. She'd drifted with Pete over most
of Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Arizony, Nevada and paht of New
Mexico an' Texas, an' she warn't jest his wife, she was his pal an'
fifty-fifty partner. Pete said the on'y time he ever knew her to hold
out on him was once in the Canyon Pintada when he woke up in the night
and saw her pourin' water out of her canteen into his. Nothin' pritty
about Kate Holden, but she was full woman-size from foot callus to gray
ha'r, back to back with Pete all the time she wasn't standin' side of
him."

"She warn't eddicated?" asked Molly.

"She was. Some thought it funny, for Pete was no scholar. I've listened
with him, more'n once when she'd tell us things about plants and
insects, or about the stars, things we'd never dreamed o