o walking. I know cowboys are not."

They tried again to persuade him, without avail. Then Ladd started
off, riding bareback. Mercedes fell in behind, with Gale walking
beside her. The two pack animals came next, and Lash brought up the
rear.

Once started with protection assured for the girl and a real objective
point in view, Gale relaxed from the tense strain he had been laboring
under. How glad he would have been to acquaint Thorne with their good
fortune! Later, of course, there would be some way to get word to the
cavalryman. But till then what torments his friend would suffer!

It seemed to Dick that a very long time had elapsed since he stepped
off the train; and one by one he went over every detail of incident
which had occurred between that arrival and the present moment.
Strange as the facts were, he had no doubts. He realized that before
that night he had never known the deeps of wrath undisturbed in him; he
had never conceived even a passing idea that it was possible for him to
try to kill a man. His right hand was swollen stiff, so sore that he
could scarcely close it. His knuckles were bruised and bleeding, and
ached with a sharp pain. Considering the thickness of his heavy glove,
Gale was of the opinion that so to bruise his hand he must have struck
Rojas a powerful blow. He remembered that for him to give or take a
blow had been nothing. This blow to Rojas, however, had been a
different matter. The hot wrath which had been his motive was not
puzzling; but the effect on him after he had cooled off, a subtle
difference, something puzzled and eluded him. The more it baffled him
the more he pondered. All those wandering months of his had been
filled with dissatisfaction, yet he had been too apathetic to
understand himself. So he had not been much of a person to try.
Perhaps it had not been the blow to Rojas any more than other things
that had wrought some change in him.

His meeting with Thorne; the wonderful black eyes of a Spanish girl;
her appeal to him; the hate inspired by Rojas, and the rush, the blow,
the action; sight of Thorne and Mercedes hurrying safely away; the
girl's hand pressing his to her heaving breast; the sweet fire of her
kiss; the fact of her being alone with him, dependent upon him--all
these things Gale turned over and over in his mind, only to fail of any
definite conclusion as to which had affected him so remarkably, or to
tell what had really happened to him.