“Say, have you got a blanket for that girl?” asked Kells, removing his pipe from his lips to address Roberts.

“I got saddle-blankets,” responded Roberts.  “You see, we didn’t expect to be caught out.”

“I’ll let you have one,” said Kells, walking away from the fire.  “It will be cold.”  He returned with a blanket, which he threw to Roberts.

“Much obliged,” muttered Roberts.

“I’ll bunk by the fire,” went on the other, and with that he sat down and appeared to become absorbed in thought.

Roberts brought the borrowed blanket and several saddle-blankets over to where Joan was, and laying them down he began to kick and scrape stones and brush aside.

“Pretty rocky place, this here is,” he said.  “Reckon you’ll sleep some, though.”

Then he began arranging the blankets into a bed.  Presently Joan felt a tug at her riding-skirt.  She looked down.

“I’ll be right by you,” he whispered, with his big hand to his mouth, “an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to sleep none.”

Whereupon he returned to the camp-fire.  Presently Joan, not because she was tired or sleepy, but because she wanted to act naturally, lay down on the bed and pulled a blanket up over her.  There was no more talking among the men.  Once she heard the jingle of spurs and the rustle of cedar brush.  By and by Roberts came back to her, dragging his saddle, and lay down near her.  Joan raised up a little to see Kells motionless and absorbed by the fire.  He had a strained and tense position.  She sank back softly and looked up at the cold bright stars.  What was going to happen to her?  Something terrible!  The very night shadows, the silence, the presence of strange men, all told her.  And a shudder that was a thrill ran over and over her.

She would lie awake.  It would be impossible to sleep.  And suddenly into her full mind flashed an idea to slip away in the darkness, find her horse, and so escape from any possible menace.  This plan occupied her thoughts for a long while.  If she had not been used to Western ways she would have tried just that thing.  But she rejected it.  She was not sure that she could slip away, or find her horse, or elude pursuit, and certainly not sure of her way home.  It would be best to stay with Roberts.

When that was settled her mind ceased to race.  She grew languid and sleepy.  The warmth of the blankets stole over her.  She had no idea of sleeping, yet she found sleep more and more difficult to resist.  Time that must have been hours passed.  The fire died down and then brightened; the shadows darkened and then lightened.  Someone now and then got up to throw on wood.  The thump of hobbled hoofs sounded out in the darkness.  The wind was still and the coyotes were gone.  She could no longer open her eyes.  They seemed glued shut.  And then gradually all sense of the night and the wild, of the drowsy warmth, faded.