She gulped the reviving food gratefully, strength coming back with the fuel that gave both warmth and motive power. Soon they were jogging on down the wide trough of the cañon beneath the white, steady stars, through scrub oak and chaparral, the air sweet scented with wild spice, through slopes set with sleeping folded poppies and Mariposa lilies, past cactus groves, columnar, stately, mystic; the mesa slopes receding, its great bulk dim mass, the twin notches that marked the Pass of the Goats hardly discernible against the sky. They crossed a white road, unfenced but evidently a main source of travel though now deserted.
"County line runs plumb down the middle of the road," announced Sandy. "There's the lights of Caroca blinkin' away to the left. Too bad we missed the train. Sleepy?"
"Some," she admitted.
"Me too," lied Sandy companionably.
Coming down from the mesa he had talked with her about Barbara Redding, how welcome she would make Molly and what she would do for her. Molly had listened silently. Only once she had spoken.
"Why didn't you marry her 'stead of that Redding?" she asked.
Sandy laughed, whole-heartedly.
"Don't believe she'd have had me. Never figgered on marryin' anybody. I'm a privateerin' sort of a person, Molly, sailin' under my own colors, that means. I've allus had the saddle itch till Mormon an' Sam an' me settled down to the ranch. Never had time enough in one place to fool round the gels."
"Sam says yo're woman-shy?" queried Molly.
"Mebbe I am. But it ain't the way a dawg is gun-shy. Must be the horrible example Mormon's set up."