"Where's Sandy now? Where did they take him?"
Sheila laughed, but there was little mirth in it.
"They didn't take him anywhere, but I don't know where he is. I saw him with the two men down by the stable. I thought they were talking about land. Half an hour afterward he came to the house with his parfleches, and asked me to put him up a couple of weeks' grubstake. He had the men locked up in the harness room, but he didn't tell me how he had done it. He took his pack horse and his blankets and hunting outfit, and pulled out. I didn't know what to do. I didn't tell the folks. The ranch hands know, but they won't let the men out. And then it must have been after ten o'clock when one of our men told me of the shooting. He had heard it from somebody on the road. He said that Cross' friends were talking of lynching McHale, and perhaps you. I didn't believe it at first, but after a while I got nervous. Everybody was asleep, and anyway there was nobody I could ask to go; so I came myself."
"And Tom and I will never forget it, Sheila," said Casey. "I don't know another girl who could have made it after a fall like that in this storm."
"It was perfectly splendid of you!" cried Kitty Wade, with hearty admiration.
Clyde, obeying a sudden impulse, leaned forward and kissed the bruised forehead. Sheila was unused to such endearments. She had no intimates of her own sex; with the women she was courteously distant, repelling and rather despising them. She had felt Clyde's instinctive hostility, and had returned it. Surprised and touched by her action, the tears started to her eyes. Clyde put her arms around the slender, pliant waist.
"Come with me, dear, and get some sleep. You're badly shaken up. We'll sleep in, in the morning."
"But I have to go back," Sheila objected. "Nobody knows I've gone. I have to be back by morning. And then there's Beaver Boy! My heavens! I left him standing outside. Oh, I've got to——"
Casey gently pressed her back as she would have risen.
"I'll stable the horse, old girl; and I'll be at Talapus by daylight to tell them where you are. Don't you worry, now, about anything—not even Sandy. If he's gone back to the hills I'll bet he finds Tom. They'll be all right."