her think of a sharp grip of hand upon it.  Kells did not hobble the horses.  He slapped his bay on the haunch and drove him down toward the brook.  Joan’s pony followed.  They drank, cracked the stones, climbed the other bank, and began to roll in the grass.  Then the other men with the packs trotted up.  Joan was glad.  She had not thought of it before, but now she felt she would rather not be alone with Kells.  She remarked then that there was no extra horse in the bunch.  It seemed strange, her thinking that, and she imagined she was not clear-headed.

“Throw the packs, Bill,” said Kells.

Another fire was kindled and preparations made toward a noonday meal.  Bill and Halloway appeared loquacious, and inclined to steal glances at Joan when Kells could not notice.  Halloway whistled a Dixie tune.  Then Bill took advantage of the absence of Kells, who went down to the brook, and he began to leer at Joan and make bold eyes at her.  Joan appeared not to notice him, and thereafter averted; her gaze.  The men chuckled.

“She’s the proud hussy!  But she ain’t foolin’ me.  I’ve knowed a heap of wimmen.”  Whereupon Halloway guffawed, and between them, in lower tones, they exchanged mysterious remarks.  Kells returned with a bucket of water.

“What’s got into you men?” he queried.

Both of them looked around, blusteringily innocent.

“Reckon it’s the same that’s ailin’ you,” replied Bill.  He showed that among wild, unhampered men how little could inflame and change.

“Boss, it’s the onaccustomed company,” added Halloway, with a conciliatory smile.  “Bill sort of warms up.  He jest can’t help it.  An’ seein’ what a thunderin’ crab he always is, why I’m glad an’ welcome.”

Kells vouchsafed no reply to this and, turning away, continued his tasks.  Joan had a close look at his eyes and again she was startled.  They were not like eyes, but just gray spaces, opaque openings, with nothing visible behind, yet with something terrible there.

The preparations for the meal went on, somewhat constrainedly on the part of Bill and Halloway, and presently were ended.  Then the men attended to it with appetites born of the open and of action.  Joan sat apart from them on the bank of the brook, and after she had appeased her own hunger she rested, leaning back in the shade of an alderbush.  A sailing shadow crossed near her, and, looking up, she saw an eagle flying above the ramparts of the canon.  Then she had a drowsy spell, but she succumbed to it only to the extent of closing her eyes.  Time dragged on.  She would rather have been in the saddle.  These men were leisurely, and Kells was provokingly slow.  They had nothing to do with time but waste it.  She tried to combat the desire for hurry, for action; she could not gain anything by worry.  Nevertheless, resignation would not come to her and her hope began to flag.  Something portended evil—­something hung in the balance.