“I not care, senor,” softly.  “Eet be nice to valk; I nevah ’fraid vid you.”

Brown led the way forward cautiously across the open space, one strong hand firm on the pony’s bit, the other barely touching her dress as though it were something sacred.  She endeavored to discern his face in the faint starlight, but the low-drawn hat brim shaded it into black lines, revealing nothing.  The light, easy words she sought to speak, hoping thus to keep him from more serious talk, would not come to her lips.  There was so much of silence and mystery on every side, so much of doubt in this venture, that, in spite of her gay manner, every nerve tingled with excitement.  Glancing up at him she bit her lips in embarrassment.  It was Stutter who finally found voice, his mind drifting back to what she had lately said in carelessness.

“Y-yer said that the p-p-pony never l-lied like a man,” he began doubtfully.  “Yer d-did n’t mean that f-fer me, did yer?”

There was something so deeply pathetic about the tone in which he asked this as to hurt her, and the slender fingers still clasping his sleeve suddenly closed more tightly.

“Senor, you mus’ not say dat; you mus’ not tink dat.  No, no!  I speak that only in fun, senor—­nevah I believe dat, nevah.  You good man, more good as Mercedes; she not vort’ von leetle bit de lofe you say to her, but she feel mooch shame to have you tink dat she mean you ven she speak such ting in fun.”

He halted suddenly, all remembrance of their surroundings, their possible peril, as instantly erased from his mind.  He merely saw that girl face upturned to his in the starlight, so fair and pleading, he merely heard that soft voice urging her unworthiness, her sorrow.  A great, broad-shouldered giant he towered above her, yet his voice trembled like that of a frightened child.

“An’ d-don’t yer say that n-no more,” he stuttered in awkwardness.  “Somehow it hurts.  L-Lord! yer don’t h-have ter be s-s-so blame good ter be u-up ter my level.  Th-they don’t b-breed no a-angels back in ol’ M-Missouri, whar I come from.  It’s m-mostly mules thar, an’ I r-reckon we all g-git a bit mulish an’ ornery.  B-but I ’spect I ’m d-decent ‘nough ter know the r-right sort o’ girl when I s-stack up agin her.  So I don’t w-want ter hear no m-more ‘bout yer not b-bein’ good.  Ye ’re sure g-good ‘nough fer me, an’ th-that ’s all thar is to it.  Now, yer w-won’t say that no more, w-will yer?”

“No, senor,” she answered simply, “I no say dat no more.”

He remained standing before her, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, a great hulk in the gloom.

“Mercedes,” he managed to say finally, “Ye’re a-g-goin’ ter ride away, an’ m-maybe thar’ll be o-one hell o’ a fracas up yere afore the rest o’ us g-g-git out o’ this scrape.  I d-don’t reckon as it’ll b-be me as will git h-hurt, but somehow I ’d f-feel a heap better if you ’d j-jest say them words what I a-asked yer to afore yer g-go, little g-girl; I would that.”