"Not for your sake—but hers."
Sinclair's face suddenly went white.
"Who?"
"The girl!" whispered Arizona. "I cached her away outside of town to wait for—us! Sinclair, she loves you."
Riley Sinclair sat as one stunned and dragged the hat from his head.
32
Through the branches of the copse in which she was hidden, the girl saw the sun descend in the west, a streak of slowly dropping fire. And now she became excited.
"As soon as it's dark," Arizona had promised, "I'll make my start. Have your hoss ready. Be in the saddle, and the minute you see us come down that trail out of Sour Creek, be ready to feed your hoss the spur and join us, because when we come, we'll come fast. Don't make no mistake. If you ride too slow we'll have to ride slow, too, and slow ridin' means gunplay on both sides, and gunplay means dead men, because the evenin' is a pile worse nor the dark for fooling a man's aim. You'll see me and Sinclair scoot along that there road, with the gang yellin' behind us!"
Having made this farewell speech, he waved his hand and, with a smile of confidence, jogged away from her. It was the beginning of a dull day of waiting for her, yet a day in which she dared not altogether relax her vigilance, because at any time the break might come, and Arizona might appear flying down the trail with the familiar tall form of Sinclair beside him. Wearily she waited until sundown.
With the coming of dusk she wakened suddenly and became tinglingly alert. The night spread rapidly down out of the mountains. The color faded, and the sudden chill of the high altitude settled about her. Her hands and her feet were cold with the fear of excitement.