'Oh, my hero! How can I ever
repay you?' She won't let you out of her clutches--anybody, so long as
it's a man! Here! None o' that!... Go on, now, if you want to live!"

"_Who the hell wants to live?_"

A noose flew back from the darkness. Jeff's horse darted aside and
Gibson was jerked sprawling to the sand at a rope's end--hat flew one
way, gun another. Jeff ran to the six-shooter.

"Who's got the gun now?" he jeered, as he loosened the rope. "I only
wish we had two of 'em!"

"You harebrained idiot!" Charley grabbed up his hat and spit sand from
his mouth. "Get your horse and ride, you unthinkable donkey!"

"Pleasure first, business afterward!" Jeff unbuckled Gibson's gunbelt
and transferred it to his own waist, jerking Gibson to his feet in the
violent process. "Now, you little blackguard, you either take back all
that or you'll get the lickin' o' your life! You're too small; but all
the same----"

"Oh, I'll take it back, you big bully--all I said and a lot more I only
thought!" said Charley spitefully. He was almost crying with rage as he
limped to his horse. "She's an angel on earth! Sure she is! Ride, you
maniac--ride! Oh, you ought to be hung! I hope you do hang--you
miserable ruffian!"

The following hoofs no longer rang sharply; they took on a muffled
beat--they were in the sand's edge not a mile behind.

"Ride ahead, you! I've got the gun, remember!" observed Jeff
significantly; "but if you slur that girl again I'll not shoot you--I'll
naturally wear you out with this belt."

CHAPTER XV

GOOD-BY

"They have ridden the low moon out of the sky; their hoofs drum
up the dawn."--_Two Strong Men_, KIPLING.

"I'm not speaking of her and I'm not going to," protested Gibson, in a
changed tone. "I'll promise! My horse is failing, Jeff. I rode hard and
fast from Escondido. Your horse carried nothing much but a saddle--that
pack was mostly bluff, you know. And those fellows' horses have come
twenty miles less than either of ours."

No answer.

"I don't believe we're going to make it, Jeff!" There was a forlorn
little quaver in Charley's voice.

Jeff grunted. "Uh! Maybe not. Griffith'll be real pleased."

Gibson rode closer. "Can't we turn off the road and hide?"

"Till daylight," said Jeff. "Then they'll get us. No way out of this
desert except across the edges somewhere. You go if you want to. They
won't bother to hunt for you, maybe, if they get me."

"No. It's my fault.... I'l