“I’m going home,” she said with decision.
“Don’t for a minute yet, Nan,” he pleaded. “Think how long it will be before I can ever see you again!”
“You may never see anybody again if you don’t realize your danger to-night. Can you ride with a hackamore?”
“Like a dream.”
“I didn’t dare bring anything else.”
“You haven’t told me,” he persisted, “how you got away at all.” They had walked out of the trees. He looked reluctantly to the east. “Tell me and I’ll go,” he promised.
“After I went up to my room I waited till the house was all quiet. Then I started for Calabasas. When I came back I got up to my room without being seen, and sat at the window a long time. I waited till all the men stopped riding past. Then I climbed through the window and down the kitchen roof, and let myself down to the ground. Some more men came past, and I hid on the porch and slipped over to the horse 216 barns and found a hackamore, and went down to the corral and hunted around till I found this little pinto––she’s the best to ride bareback.”
“I could ride a razorback––why take all that trouble for me?”
“If you don’t start while you have a chance, you undo everything I have tried to do to avoid a fight.”
The wind, stirring softly, set the aspen leaves quivering. The stars, chilled in the thin, clear night air, hung diamond-like in the heavens and the eastern sky across the distant desert paled for the rising moon. The two standing at the horse’s head listened a moment together in the darkness. De Spain, leaning forward, said something in a low, laughing voice. Nan made no answer. Then, bending, he took her hand and, before she could release it, caught it up to his lips.