of you, and of the big world, brought me back to the present
with its loneliness and fear of starvation. Then I wanted you, and I'd
cry out. I knew I must send Wolf home. How hard it was to make him go!
But at last he trotted off, looking backward, and I--waited and waited."

She leaned against him. The hand which had plucked at his sleeve dropped
to his fingers and clung there. Hare knew how her story had slighted
the perils and privations of that long year. She had grown lonely in the
canyon darkness; she had sent Wolf away and had waited--all was said in
that. But more than any speech, the look of her, and the story told in
the thin brown hands touched his heart. Not for an instant since his
arrival had she altogether let loose of his fingers, or coat, or arm.
She had lived so long alone in this weird world of silence and moving
shadows and murmuring water, that she needed to feel the substance of
her hopes, to assure herself of the reality of the man she loved.

"My mustang--Bolly--tell me of her," said Mescal.

"Bolly's fine. Sleek and fat and lazy! She's been in the fields ever
since you left. Not a bridle on her. Many times have I seen her poke her
black muzzle over the fence and look down the lane. She'd never forget
you, Mescal."

"Oh! how I want to see her! Tell me--everything."

"Wait a little. Let me fetch Silvermane and we'll make a fire and eat.
Then--"

"Tell me now."

"Well, Mescal, it's soon told." Then came the story of events growing
out of her flight. When he told of the shooting at Silver Cup, Mescal
rose with heaving bosom and blazing eyes.

"It was nothing--I wasn't hurt much. Only the intention was bad. We saw
no more of Snap or Holderness. The worst of it all was that Snap's wife
died."

"Oh, I am sorry--sorry. Poor Father Naab! How he must hate me, the cause
of it all! But I couldn't stay--I couldn't marry Snap."

"Don't blame yourself, Mescal. What Snap might have done if you had
married him is guesswork. He might have left drink alone a while longer.
But he was bad clean through. I heard Dave Naab tell him that. Snap
would have gone over to Holderness sooner or later. And now he's a
rustler, if not worse."

"Then those men think Snap killed you?"

"Yes."

"What's going to happen when you meet Snap, or any of them?"

"Somebody will be surprised," replied Hare, with a laugh.

"Jack, it's no laughing matter." She fastened her hands in the lapels of
his coat and her eyes grew s