“It’s going to be the biggest thing in my life.  If there’s any chance at all I’ll wait as long as you like.  Of course, the idea’s new to you because you haven’t ever thought of me that way—­”

“You know so much about it,” she replied, a faint smile in her dark eyes that had in it something of wistfulness, something of self-mockery.  She looked directly at him and let him have it full in the face.  “I ought to be ashamed of it, I suppose, but I’m not.  I’ve thought of you—­that way—­lots of times.  All girls do, when they meet a man they like.”

“You like me?”

She might have told him that her heart had been his ever since that first week when she had met him and Clanton on the river.  She might have added that all he had needed to do was to whisper “Come” and she would have galloped across New Mexico to meet him.  But she made no such confession.

“Yes, I ... like you,” she said, a little tremor in her voice.

He noticed that she did not look at him.  Her eyes had fallen to the fingers laced together on her lap.  Under compulsion of his steady gaze she lifted her lashes at last.  What he read there was beyond belief.  The wonder of it lifted his feet from the earth.

“Lee!” he cried, joy and fear in the balance.

She answered his unspoken question with a little nod.

His hand shook.  “I’ve been a blind idiot, dear.  I never guessed such a thing.”

“You were thinking about Polly all the time.  I don’t blame you.  She’s the sweetest thing I ever knew.”

Billie sat down on the spar of rock beside her.  His hand slipped down her arm till it covered hers.  With the contact there came to him a flood of courage.  He took her in his arms and kissed her with infinite tenderness.

Still unstrung from her adventures, she wept a little into his shoulder out of a full heart.

“D—­don’t mind me,” she urged.  “It’s just because I’m so happy.”

If Clanton, when he found them together a few minutes afterward, guessed what had happened, he gave no evidence of it but a grin, unless his later comment had a cryptic meaning.  “I’ll bet Billie is the glad lad at findin’ you.  He always was a lucky guy.”

“I think I’m a little lucky too,” Lee said with a grave smile.

Before starting, Prince examined the soles of the girl’s boots.  Out of his hat he fashioned a pair of overshoes and fastened them with strings to her feet.

“They’ll help some,” he promised.  “I reckon you’re not goin’ to do much walkin’ anyhow with three husky men along.”

By this time the searcher on the other flank had joined them.  The return trip was a long, hard one, but with Billie on one side of her, and Jim on the other, Lee found it easy travelling.  They aided her over the sharp rocks and lifted her across the rougher stretches of lava.

At the edge of the lava bed a buggy was waiting to take Lee to Live-Oaks in case she should be found.  Prince helped Lee in and took the place of the boy who had driven it out.