Apparently she interpreted his speechlessness in a different way.  She said after a moment:  “That sounds like quittin’ cold on you.  I won’t do it unless you try some fool thing like riding back toward Drew.”

He waited again as long as he dared, then:  “Don’t you see that the last thing I want is to keep you with me?”

There was no pleasure in that climax.  She sat with parted lips, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, staring at him.  He became as vividly conscious of her femininity as he had been when she laughed in the dark.  There was the same sustained pulsing, vital emotion in this silence.

He explained hastily:  “A girl’s reputation is a fragile thing, Sally.”

And she recovered herself with a start, but not before he saw and understood.  It was as if, in the midst of an exciting hand, with the wagers running high, he had seen her cards and knew that his own hand was higher.  The pleasant sense of mastery made a warmth through him.

“Meaning that they’d talk about me?  Bard, they’ve already said enough things about me to fill a book—­notes and all, with a bunch of pictures thrown in.  What I can’t live down I fight down, and no man never says the same thing twice about me.  It ain’t healthy.  If that’s all that bothers you, close your eyes and let me lead you out of this mess.”

He hunted about for some other way to draw her out.  After all, it was an old, old game.  He had played it before many a time; though the setting and the lights had been different the play was always the same—­a man, and a woman.

She was explaining:  “And it is a mess.  Maybe you could get out after droppin’ Calamity, because it was partly self-defence, but there ain’t nothin’ between here and God that can get you off from liftin’ a hoss.  No, sir, not even returning the hoss won’t do no good.  I know!  The only thing is speed—­and a thousand miles east of here you can stop ridin’.”

He found the thing to say, and he made his voice earnest and low to give the words wing and sharpness; it was like the bum of the bow string after the arrow is launched, so tense was the tremor of his tone.

“There are two reasons why I can’t leave.  The first is Drew.  I must get back to him.”

“Why d’you want Drew?  Let me tell you, Bard, he’s a bigger job than ten tenderfeet like you could handle.  Why, mothers scare their babies asleep by tellin’ of the things that William Drew has done.”

“I can’t tell you why.  In fact, I don’t altogether know the complete why and wherefore.  It’s enough that I have to meet him and finish him!”

Her fingers interlaced and gripped; he wondered at their slenderness; and leaning back so that his face fell under a slant, black shadow, he enjoyed the flame of the firelight, turning her brown hair to amber and gold.  White and round and smooth and perfect was the column of her throat, and it trembled with the stir of her voice.