It was Phyl Sanderson’s cry of horror that Healy heard.  She had put her horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the precipice into space.  She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far below.  Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being.

A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry.

“My heaven, it’s Phyl!” he cried.

“Yes.”  She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized as hers.

“Where is he?  What’s become of him?” Healy demanded.

She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke down helplessly.  The outlaw went to the edge and looked over.  The gulf of air told no story except the obvious one.  No wingless living creature could make that descent without forfeiture of life.  He stepped back to the girl and touched her on the shoulder.

“Come.”

She looked up, shuddering, and asked, “Where?”

“With me.”

“With you?  It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!”

“Never mind that now.  Come.”

“I hate you!  I should kill you when I got a chance!  Why should I go with you?” she asked evenly.

He did not know why.  He had no definite plan.  All he knew was that his old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the cliff.  He could not give her up now.  He would not.

The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him.  She was his.  He had won her by the fortune of war.  He would keep her against all comers so long as he had life to fight.  Night was falling softly over the hills.  They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new earth.

He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse.  She looked at him in a silence that stripped him of his dreams.

“Come!” he said again, between clenched teeth.

“Not with you.  I don’t know you.  Leave me alone.  You killed him!  You’re a murderer!”

He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit.

“Go away!  Don’t touch me!  You and your miscreants killed him!” And with that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of him.

He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him, but none the less determined to take her with him.  Across the border he would not be a hunted man with a price on his head.  They could be married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her love him and forget this man that had come between them.  At all events, he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his.  He stooped and caught her shoulder.  She had fainted.