“Then if it’s hopeless, Sally Fortune, go now.”

She answered, with an upward tilt of her chin:  “Don’t be a fool, Anthony.  If I can’t be a woman to you, at least I can be a pal—­the best you’ve had in these parts.  Nope, I’ll see you through.  Better saddle now—­”

“And start back for Drew?”

There was the thrust that made her start, as if the knife went through tender flesh.

“Are you such a plumb fool as that?”

“Go now, Sally.  I tell you, it’s no use.  I won’t leave the trail of Drew.”

It was only the outward stretch of her arm, only the extension of her hand, palm up, but it was as if her whole nature expanded toward him in tenderness.

“Oh, Anthony, if you care for me, don’t stay in reach of Drew!  You’re breaking—­”

She stopped and closed her eyes.

“Breakin’ all the rules, like any tenderfoot would be expected to do.”

She glanced at him, wistful, to see whether or not she had smoothed it over; his face was a blank.

“You won’t go?”

“Nope.”

He insisted cruelly:  “Why?”

“Because—­because—­well, can I leave a baby alone near a fire?  Not me!”

Her voice changed.  The light and the life was gone from it, but not all the music.  It was low, a little hoarse.

“I guess we can stay here tonight without no danger.  And in the morning—­well, the morning can take care of itself.  I’m going to turn in.”

He rose obediently and stood at the door, facing the night.  From behind came the rustle of clothes, and the sense of her followed and surrounded and stood at his shoulder calling to him to turn.  He had won, but he began to wonder if it had not been a Pyrrhic victory.

At length:  “All right, Anthony.  It’s your turn.”

She was lying on her side, facing the wall, a little heap of clothes on the foot of her bunk, and the lithe lines of her body something to be guessed at—­sensed beneath the heavy blanket.  He slipped into his own bunk and lay a moment watching the heavy drift of shadows across the ceiling.  He strove to think, but the waves of light and dark blotted from his mind all except the feeling of her nearness, that indefinable power keen as the fragrance of a garden, which had never quite become disentangled from his spirit.  She was there, so close.  If he called, she would answer; if she answered------

He turned to the wall, shut his eyes, and closed his mind with a Spartan effort.  His breathing came heavily, regularly, like one who slept or one who is running.  Over that sound he caught at length another light rustling, and then the faint creak as she crossed the crazy floor.  He made his face calm—­forced his breath to grow more soft and regular.

Then, as if a shadow in which there is warmth had crossed him, he knew that she was leaning above him, close, closer; he could hear her breath.  In a rush of tenderness, he forgot her beauty of eyes and round, strong throat, and supple body—­he forgot, and was immersed, like an eagle winging into a radiant sunset cloud, in a sense only of her being, quite divorced from the flesh, the mysterious rare power which made her Sally Fortune, and would not change no matter what body might contain it.