e you couldn't get him."

"I've six men behind me."

She was still defiant, but her colour changed.

"Six, Sally, and he's out here among the hills, not knowing his right
from his left. I ask you: has he got a chance?"

She answered: "No; not one."

He turned on his heel, beckoned to Kilrain, who had stood moveless
through the strange dialogue, and went out into the night.

As they mounted he said: "We're going straight for the place where I
told Butch Conklin I'd meet him. Then the bunch of us will come back."

"Why waste time?"

"Because he's sure to come back. Shorty, after a feller has seen Sally
smile--the way she can smile--he couldn't keep away. I _know_!"

They rode off at a slow trot, like men who have resigned themselves to a
long journey, and Sally watched them from the door. She sat down,
crosslegged, before the fire, and stirred the embers, and strove to
think.

But she was not equipped for thinking, all her life had been merely
action, action, action, and now, as she strove to build out some logical
sequence and find her destiny in it, she failed miserably, and fell back
upon herself. She was one of those single-minded people who give
themselves up to emotion rarely, but when they do their whole body,
their whole soul burns in the flame.

Into her mind came a phrase she had heard in her childhood. On the
outskirts of Eldara there was a little shack owned by a Mexican--Jose,
he was called, and nothing else, "Greaser" Jose. One night an alarm of
fire was given in Eldara, and the whole populace turned out to enjoy the
sight; it was a festival occasion, in a way. It was the house of Greaser
Jose.

The cowpunchers manned a bucket line, but the source of water was far
away, the line too long, and the flames gained faster than they could be
quenched. All through the work of fire-fighting Greaser Jose was
everywhere about the house, flinging buckets of water through the
windows into the red furnace within; his wife and the two children stood
stupidly, staring, dumb. But in the end, when the fire was towering
above the roof of the house, roaring and crackling, the Mexican suddenly
raised a long arm and called to the bucket line, "It is done. Senors, I
thank you."

Then he had folded his arms and repeated in a monotone, over and over
again: "_Todo es perdo; todo es perdo_!"

His wife came to him, frantic, wailing, and threw her arms around his
neck. He merely repeated with heavy monotony: "_Todo es