Night after night he was content to sit like that, her small hand cuddled in his; but in the evening hours there were so many things to do toward the fulfilment of their dream.

 

"Jest a coupla weeks more, Mira," he murmured. "Mebbe a few days longer."

 

"And the last two horses?"

 

"I'll git 'em somehow. It gits harder every time the bohunks do things, 'cause somebody's allus watchin'. But I never was fooled yet, an' no tenderfoot's goin' to start. . . . Only I don't want no shootin'."

 

"Perhaps he'll sell now when the time's so near."

 

Blue Pete laughed mirthlessly. "Yuh don't know Torrance. He said he wudn't, an' that's better'n a million dollars to him."

 

"But you think he's going to give them to us when he's through?"

 

She leaned forward anxiously to catch a glimpse of his swarthy face in the dim light, and he did not reply until he had considered it.

 

"If I was sartin! But if, when I'd lef' 'em to the las' minute, if he took it in his head to pull out with 'em! I dassent take no chances. I gotta have them horses."

 

He knew by her silence that she was contemplating the possibility of failure.

 

"If yuh say so, Mira, mebbe I cud git myself to take 'em now an' pull out."

 

She was fighting the stern battle which in his innocence he had roused in her hungry mind, and for a moment he trembled for the result. Vaguely he felt that he had done something unfair in shifting the responsibility to her shoulders, but whatever her answer he knew what his duty was; and only her wishes could drown that duty.

 

"Bert is waiting for us down in the Hills," she sighed, not to unsettle his convictions but merely as a fact to be considered.

 

"Mebbe yuh'd bes' run down an' tell him we'll be a while yet," he replied, understanding her perfectly. "I don't see no way out neither. I'll come 'long soon's I can. Whiskers an' me can git the horses down."

 

She gurgled softly into the darkness, and clasped his arm with both her hands. Nothing more was necessary. A thrill ran through his big frame, and almost reverently he pressed his dark cheek against her hair.

 

Thus they sat, until the gleam faded from the water and only a dim glow remained; and the pale sky peeped down through the trees with the chill of a clear moon. High up in the unseen trails of the air a flight of wild geese honked its weary way southward, and the halfbreed read the warning of approaching winter. Some creature splashed into the water straight before them with a noise that awakened the forest echoes and deepened the enveloping silence afterwards. Juno lifted her head and sniffed, and nosed into her mistress. She longed to get into the open and howl, and this was how she fought the instinct. Deepest peace closed down on them with the night.

 

It was Juno heard the speeders first. With a faint whimper she lifted her ears and sniffed to the east. It was sufficient for Blue Pete. In an instant he had picked out the purring sound and went back into the cave for blanket and moccasins and rifle. When he returned, the t............