There was one moment of their ride when she stood on the tiptoe of
expectation and showed again the sparkle of eager life. MacQueen had
resaddled after their luncheon, and they were climbing a long sidehill
that looked over a dry valley. With a gesture, the outlaw checked her
horse.
"Look!"
Some quarter of a mile from them two men were riding up a wash that ran
through the valley. The mesquite and the cactus were thick, and it was for
only an occasional moment that they could be seen. Black and the girl were
screened from view by a live oak in front of them, so that there was no
danger of being observed. The outlaw got out his field glasses and watched
the men intently.
Melissy could not contain the question that trembled on her lips: "Do you
know them?"
"I reckon not."
"Perhaps----"
"Well!"
"May I look--please?"
He handed her the glasses. She had to wait for the riders to reappear, but
when they did she gave a little cry.
"It's Mr. Bellamy!"
"Oh, is it?"
He looked at her steadily, ready to crush in her throat any call she might
utter for help. But he soon saw that she had no intention of making her
presence known. Her eyes were glued to the glasses. As long as the men
were in sight she focused her gaze on them ravenously. At last a bend in
the dry river bed hid them from view. She lowered the binoculars with a
sigh.
"Lucky they didn't see us," he said, with his easy, sinister laugh. "Lucky
for them."
She noticed for the first time that he had uncased his rifle and was
holding it across the saddle-tree.
Night slipped silently down from the hills--the soft, cool, velvet night
of the Arizona uplands. The girl drooped in the saddle from sheer
exhaustion. The past few days had been hard ones, and last night she had
lost most of her sleep. She had ridden far on rough trails, had been
subjected to a stress of emotion to which her placid maiden life had been
unused. But she made no complaint. It was part of the creed she had
unconsciously learned from her father to game out whatever had to be
endured.
The outlaw, though he saw her fatigue, would not heed it. She had chosen
to set herself apart from him. Let her ask him to stop and rest, if she
wanted to. It would do her pride good to be humbled. Yet in his heart he
admired her the more, because she asked no favors of him and forbore the
womanish appeal of tears.