"When we sight them, I want you to drop back, sir! The Desert's got them. They haven't the resistance of dead fish left. If we cut across this sink, as I make it, we'll save a couple of miles and almost meet them on the other side of the next ridge."
When Wayland had wakened the old frontiersman, he had babbled inconsequently about the sea. Mixing brandy with the last of the sediment water, Wayland got him into the saddle. There were queer splotches of blood under the skin on the backs of his hands; but when the brandy relieved his fatigue, he stopped babbling of the sea and spoke coherently.
"Y' mind the man, whose wife died in the Desert, Wayland?"
His horse stumbled. The Ranger snatched at the bridle and jerked it up.
"Yes," said Wayland.
"Vera noble of the woman; 'tis all right on her record, Wayland; but what do y' think o' th' man?"
"But in this case, the man took her in to save her life."
"A wasn't thinking of his case," answered the other bluntly. "A was thinking of yours."
The horse stumbled again. This time, the Ranger kept hold of the bridle rein.
"A didna' just mean t' tell y', Wayland; but A want y' t' know before A drop back. A saw it in her eyes, Wayland, yon night she went up the Ridge trail, and oh, man, A was loth to speak: she would cheer y' on in y'r work, A thought, perhaps—perhaps, the Lord might be playin' an ace card an' A'd no be trumpin' my partner's tricks; but 'tisn't so; Wayland, 'tisn't so! This Desert hell proves me wrong. She isna for y', man; no man can ask a woman to come into a fight that may mean this! It's a man's job, Wayland; an' the man who would drag a woman into the sufferin' of it isn't worthy of her . . . isn't the man to do the job. Oh yes, A know, a woman's love is ready to jump in the fire an' all that. Hoh! The man's love that'll let her is poor stuff, Wayland, base metal, kind o' love to burn all away to dross an' ashes when the fires come! Her's will come out pure gold thro' it all, but man alive, Wayland, think o' her when she finds his as dross; an' if he lets her sacrifice hers for his, 'tis dross!"