"Wait," she called after him. "I still don't know your name."
"My name is Lawrence." He was gone.
The boy drew back and looked up at her, no longer frightened but now tired and curious.
"Well that's better. You don't have to be afraid of me." He looked at her and chewed his finger. She returned his gaze and smiled. "What's your name?"
"Johnny Harris." His leg kicked gently out over the side. She patted him on the head, then went to look for some paper.
The man went down between the high walls of the gap, coming out at the twin faces of the cliffs. Turning right, he skirted the huge southern promontory till he came a scree hill, rising still higher toward the frozen peaks beyond. Here, some two hundred yards further up, a four foot tunnel, shaded by a boulder, led deep into the mountainside. Stooping to enter, he walked till he was weary and stiff with a sharp pain in his back, then walked much farther.
*
It was late evening, darkening to full night. Two men walked through the opening with the shield still dissipating. The familiar face came first, then to her dismay the woman saw that the stranger was white. He studied her as they approached, with the same hard cold gleam as the other.
"I don't know," he said, turning to the guerrilla. "She has the looks, but not much grit, seemingly. The face is much too soft."
Lawrence said nothing, hung his coat on a peg by the wall. She half expected him to draw out a hidden knife and bury it in the white man's back. But the two stood side by side, and she realized that she was the outsider, the one in question. The tall, fair-haired man stood looking her up and down like a slave at auction. She got angry.