“I don’t quite see how you expect to arrange it, Mr. Neill.  That is your name, isn’t it?” she added indifferently.

“That’s my name—­ Larry Neill.  Easiest thing in the world to arrange.  We ride pillion if it suits you; if not, I’ll walk.”

“Neither plan suits me,” she announced curtly, her gaze on the far-away hills.

He glanced at her in quick surprise, then made the mistake of letting himself smile at her frosty aloofness instead of being crestfallen by it.  She happened to look round and catch that smile before he could extinguish it.  Her petulance hardened instantly to a resolution.

“I don’t quite know what we’re going to do about it—­ unless you walk,” he proposed, amused at the absurdity of his suggestion.

“That’s just what I’m going to do,” she retorted promptly.

“What!” He wheeled on her with an astonished smile on his face.

This served merely to irritate her.

“I said I was going to walk.”

“Walk seventeen miles?”

“Seventy if I choose.”

“Nonsense!  Of course you won’t.”

Her eyebrows lifted in ironic demurrer.  “I think you must let me be the judge of that,” she said gently.

“Walk!” he reiterated.  “Why, you’re walked out.  You couldn’t go a mile.  What do you take me for?  Think I’m going to let you come that on me.”

“I don’t quite see how you can help it, Mr. Neill,” she answered.

“Help it!  Why, it ain’t reasonable.  Of course you’ll ride.”

“Of course I won’t.”

She set off briskly, almost jauntily, despite her tired feet and aching limbs.

“Well, if that don’t beat—­” He broke off to laugh at the situation.  After she had gone twenty steps he called after her in a voice that did not suppress its chuckle:  “You ain’t going the right direction, Miss Kinney.”

She whirled round on him in anger.  How dared he laugh at her?

“Which is the right way?” she choked.

“North by west is about it.”

She was almost reduced to stamping her foot.

Without condescending to ask more definite instructions she struck off at haphazard, and by chance guessed right.  There was nothing for it but to pursue.  Wherefore the man pursued.  The horse at his heels hampered his stride, but he caught up with her soon.

“Somebody’s acting mighty foolish,” he said.

She said nothing very eloquently.

“If I need punishing, ma’am, don’t punish yourself, but me.  You ain’t able to walk and that’s a fact.”

She gave her silent attention strictly to the business of making progress through the cactus and the sand.

“Say I’m all you think I am.  You can trample on me proper after we get to the Mal Pais.  Don’t have to know me at all if you don’t want to.  Won’t you ride, ma’am?  Please!”

His distress filled her with a fierce delight.  She stumbled defiantly forward.