"So the sheriff, Jim Taggart, is not dead, after all. And you...."
Deveril looked across their tiny fire at her, a strange expression in his eyes, and said quietly:
"No; he is not dead. All along I judged that unlikely. Though I slung your gun at him hard enough, if it hit a lucky spot. It's hard to kill a man, you know.... And, to finish your thought, I am not running wild with a hangman's noose hanging about my neck! And you...."
He took a certain devilish glee in concluding with an echo of her own words. And with the added insinuation poured into them from his own. He saw her jerk her head up defiantly.
"I told you...."
Again she broke off. He made no remark, but sat looking at her intently. They had eaten and drunk their fill; there remained to them a goodly stock of provisions; Deveril was smoking his cigarette.
"What now?" demanded Lynette, as one tired of a subject and impatient to look forward.
He shrugged.
"All troubles have slipped off my shoulders. The worst they could do to me, if they could lay me by the heels, would be to charge me with assault and battery! And we're in a neck of the woods where men laugh at a charge like that, and ask the assaulted one why the devil he didn't hit back! What now? For you I'd advise keeping right on travelling. For if Bruce
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Standing is dead it's up to you to keep on the move! As for me, I never met up with a sweeter travelling companion, nor yet with a nervier, nor yet, by God, with a lovelier! Say the word, Lynette Brooke, and we strike on together, over the ridge and deeper into the wilderness, headed for the land beyond Buck Valley, beyond Big Bear Creek. For the wild lands beyond the last holdings of the late Timber-Wolf, to be on the ground when Mexicali Joe leads Taggart and Gallup and Shipton to his gold!"
She understood how Babe Deveril, as any man should be, was relieved at knowing that the man he had stricken down was not dead; that he, himself, was not hunted as a murderer. And yet she was vaguely distressed and uneasy. She felt a change in him, and in his attitude toward her.... When he awaited her reply, she made none. Again fatigue swept over her, and with it a new stirring of uneasiness....
There was a drop of coffee left; she leaned forward and took it, thinking: "He had his tobacco, and it has bolstered up his nerves." She drank and then sat back, leaning against a tree, her face hidden from him, while she searched his face in the dim light, searched it with a stubborn desire to read the most hidden thought in his brain.
"I am tired," she said after a long while. He could make nothing of her voice, low and impersonal, and with no inflection to give it expression beyond the brief meanings of the words themselves. "Very tired. Yet necessity drives. And it is not safe here, so near them. I can go on for another hour, perhaps two or three hours. That will mean ... how far? Four or five miles; maybe six, seven?"
Not only for one hour, not alone for just two or three hours did they push on. But for half of that silent,
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 starry night. A score of times Babe Deveril said to her: "We've done our stunt; if any girl on earth ever earned rest, you've done it." But always there was that driving force and that allure, and another ridge just ahead, and her answer: "Another mile.... I can do it."
Deveril, with a lighted match cupped in his hand, looked at his watch.
"It's long after midnight; nearly one o'clock."
They found a sheltered spot among the tall pines; above them the keen edge of an up-thrust ridge; just below a thick-grown clump of underbrush; underfoot dry needles, fallen and drifted from the pines. Again he was all courtesy and kindliness toward her, seeing her hard pressed, judging her, despite her mask of hardihood, near collapse. So he cut pine boughs with his knife and broke them with his hands, and of them piled her a couch. She thanked him gently; impulsively she gave him her hand ... though, as his caught it eagerly, she jerked it away quickly.... He watched her lie down, snuggling her cheek against the curve of her arm. Near by he lay down on his back, his two hands under his head, his eyes on the stars. A curious smile twitched at his lips.
And then, just as they were dropping off to sleep, they heard far off a long-drawn, howling cry piercing through the great hush. Lynette started up, her blood quickening; as she had heard Bruce Standing's warning call that first time, so now did she think to hear it again. Deveril leaped to his feet, no less startled. A moment later he called softly to her, and it seemed to Lynette that he forced a tone of lightness which did not ring true:
"A timber wolf ... but one that runs on four legs! It won't come near." Then, as she made no answer
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 and he could not see her face, he asked sharply: "What did you think it was?"
She shivered and lay back.
"I didn't know."
And to herself she whispered:
"And I don't know now!"
Here among the uplands it was a night of piercing cold. The nearer the dawn drew on, the icier grew the fingers of the wind which swept the ridges and probed into the cañons. For a little while both Lynette and Deveril slept the heavy sleep of exhaustion. But, after the first couple of hours, neither slept beyond brief, uncomfortable dozes. They shivered and woke and stirred; they found a growing torture in the rude couches they slept upon, in the hard ground and stones, which seemed always thrusting up in new places. Long before the night had begun to thin to the first of daybreak's hint, Lynette was sitting, her back to a tree, torn between the two impossibilities, that of remaining awake, that of remaining asleep. Deveril got up and began stamping about, trying to get warm and drive the cramp and soreness out of his muscles.
"A few more days and nights like this," he grumbled, "would be enough to kill a pair of Esquimos! We've got to find us some sort of half-way decent shelter for another night, and we've got to arrange to take a holiday and rest up."
It was all that she could do to keep her teeth from chattering by shutting them hard together; her only answer was a shivery sigh. She could scarcely make him out, where he trod back and forth, the darkness held so thick. She began to think so longingly of a fire that in comparison with its cheer and warmth she felt that possible discovery by Taggart would be a small misfortune. She could almost welcome being put under
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 arrest; taken back to Big Pine and jail; given a bed and covers and one long sleep.
"Awake?" queried Deveril.
She nodded, as though he could see her nod through the dark. Then, with an effort, she said an uncertain: "Y-e-s."
"I'll tell you," he said presently, coming close to her and looking down upon the blot in the darkness which her huddled figure made at the base of the pine. "Taggart will be on his way soon; he'll hardly wait for day. He'll go the straightest, quickest way to the Big Bear country. That means he'll steer on straight into Buck Valley. If you and I went that way, we'd have him and his crowd at our heels all day, and never know how close they were; and I, for one, am damned sick of that feeling that somebody's creeping up on us all the time! So we swerve out from the direct way as soon as we start; we curve off to the north for a couple of miles; then we make a bend around toward the upper end of what I fancy must be the Grub Stake Cañon Joe is headed for. That way we'll always have two or three miles between our trail and theirs; at times we'll be five or six miles off to the side. That means, of course, that they're pretty sure to get to Joe's diggings ahead of us; not over half a day at that. For we're well ahead of them now. And, in any case, you can bet the last sardine we've got that they'll be a day or two just poking around, prospecting and trying to make sure of what they've grabbed off.... Agreed, pardner?"
"Yes. I could even start now, just to get those few miles between our trail and theirs. Then, when the sun was up and it was warm, we could have a rest and an hour's sleep."
So, walking slowly, painfully, carrying what was left of their small stock of provisions, they started on in the
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 dark. Up a ridge they went and into the thinning edge of the coming dawn; they picked their way among trees and rocks; little by little they were able to see in more detail what lay about them. Along the ridge they tramped northward. They were warmer now that they walked; or, rather, they were some degrees less cold. Gradually their paces grew swifter, as some of the stiffness went out of their bodies; gradually the shadows thinned; the stars paled, the east asserted itself above the other points of the compass, softly tinted. The sleeping world began to awake all about them; birds stirred with the first drowsy twitterings. The pallid eastern tints grew brighter; as from a wine-cup, life was spilled again upon the mountain tops. A bird began a clear-noted, joyous singing; all of a sudden the morning breeze seemed sweeter and softer; there came a brilliant, flaming glory in the sky which drew their eyes; all life forces which had been at ebb began to flow strongly once more; the sun thrust a gleaming golden edge up into the upper world, rolling majestically from the under world. Deveril looked into her eyes and laughed softly; her eyes smiled back into his.... She felt as though she had had a bad dream, but was awake now; as though last night her nerves had tricked her into wrongly judging her companion. Doubtings always flock in the night; joy is never more joyous than when breaking forth with the new day.
"It isn't so bad, after all," said Deveril. "Now, if we only had a pack-mule and a roll of blankets and a bit of canvas.... What more would you ask, Lynette Brooke, for a lark and a holiday to remember pleasantly when we grew to be doddering old folks?"
"As long as you are wishing," returned Lynette lightly, "why not place an order with the King of Ifs for a gun and some fishing-tackle and a frying-pan and
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 some more coffee? And a couple of hats; an outing suit for me." She looked down at her suit; it was torn in numerous places; it was gummed and sticky here and there with the resin from pines; it caught upon every bush. "Then, you know, a needle and some thread; a dozen fresh eggs, bread, and butter...."
"Too much soft living has spoiled you!" he laughed.
"If so, I am in ideal training to get unspoiled in short order!" she laughed back.
And for all of this was the rising sun and the new, bright day responsible; for the ancient way of youth playing up to youth.
What was happening within both of them was a great nervous relaxation. They knew where Taggart and Gallup were, or at least were confident that there was no immediate danger of Taggart and Gallup overhauling them; they knew where Mexicali Joe was and where he was going. For the moment they were freed from that crushing sense of uncertainty welded to menace which had borne down upon them ever since they fled from Big Pine. And consequently joy of life sprang up as a spring leaps the instant that the weight is plucked from it.
"It's our lucky day!" said Deveril.
For the sun was scarcely up when a plump young rabbit hopped square into their path, and Deveril, with a lucky throw, killed it with a rock. And just as they were speaking of thirst, they came to a tiny trickle of water among the rocks; and while Lynette was boiling coffee over a tiny blaze, Deveril was preparing grilled cottontail for breakfast. Savory odors floating out through the woodlands. Lynette was singing softly:
"Merry it is in the good Greenwood!"
They ate and rested and the sun warmed them. For
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 a full two hours they scarcely stirred. Then they drank again; Lynette bathed her hands and face and arms; she set her hair in order, refashioning the two thick braids. She shut one eye and then the other, striving to make certain that there was not a black smudge somewhere upon her nose. They were starting on when Deveril said soberly:
"Shall I save the rabbit skin?"
"Why?" she asked innocently.
A twinkle came into his eyes.
"A few more days of this sort of life, and My Lady Linnet is going to require a new gown! Perhaps rabbit furs, if hunting is good, will do it!"
She laughed at him, and her eyes were daring as she sang, improvising as to melody:
"And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
That wont on harp to stray,
A cloak must sheer from the slaughtered deer,
To keep the cold away!"
"Lynette!"
A flash from her gay mood had set his eyes on fire. He sprang up and came toward her, his two hands out. But as a black cloud can run over the face of the young moon, so did a sudden change of mood wipe the tempting look out of her eyes and darken them. Her spirit had peeped forth at him, merry-making; as quick as ............