“How?” he asked, “what did you do?”
But Tharon shook her head.
“Nothin’ you’d understand,” she said quietly.
“I can show you something you will understand,” he said, and reached for Captain’s bridle. He pulled the horse around and pointed to the saddle horn.
“See that?”
She looked up quickly. With the sure instinct of a dweller in a gun man’s land she knew the meaning of the splintered wood of the pommel, the torn and ragged leather that had covered it.
“Hell!” she said softly, “where did you get that?”
“At the mouth of Black Coulee, at dusk a week ago.”
For a long moment Tharon studied the saddle. Then her gaze dimmed, lengthened, went beyond into infinitude. The pupils of her eyes drew down to tiny points of black against the brilliant blue.
At last she turned and held out a hand, rising from her elbow.