"You will get it, but in that case you will die like a fool."
"You have believed me to be one, all this afternoon."
"Possibly," he admitted; "your words and actions certainly justified some such conclusion, but the opportunity has arrived for causing me to revise that suspicion."
"I don't care to have you, revise it, Mr. Bob Hampton. If I go, I shall hate you just the same."
Hampton's teeth clicked like those of an angry dog. "Hate and be damned," he exclaimed roughly. "All I care about now is to drag you out of here alive."
His unaffected sincerity impressed her more than any amount of pleading. She was long accustomed to straight talk; it always meant business, and her untutored nature instantly responded with a throb of confidence.
"Well, if you put it that way," she said, "I 'll go."
For one breathless moment neither stirred. Then a single wild yell rang sharply forth from the rocks in their front, and a rifle barked savagely, its red flame cleaving the darkness with tongue of fire. An instant and the impenetrable gloom again surrounded them.
"Come on, then," he whispered, his fingers grasping her sleeve.
She shook off the restraining touch of his hand as if it were contamination, and sank down upon her knees beside the inert body. He could barely perceive the dim outlines of her bowed figure, yet never moved, his breath perceptibly quickening, while he watched and waited. Without word or moan she bent yet lower, and pressed her lips upon the cold, white face. The man caught no more than the faintest echo of a murmured "Good-bye, old dad; I wish I could take you with me." Then she stood stiffly upright, facing him. "I'm ready now," she announced calmly. "You can go on ahead."