the directions had been plain. with the north star and the moon as our guides we scarcely could fail to strike the stage road where it bore off from the mountains northward into the desert.

for the first half mile we rode without a word from either of us to violate the truce that swathed us like the night. what her thoughts were i might not know, but they sat heavy upon her, closing her throat with the torture of vain self-reproach. that much i sensed. but i could not reassure her; could not volunteer to her that i welcomed her company, that she was blameless, that i had only defended my honor, that affairs would have reduced to pistol work without impulse from her—that, in short, the responsibility had been wholly daniel’s. my own thoughts were so grievous as to crush me with aching woe that forebade civil utterance.

this, then, was i: somebody who had just killed a man, had broken from the open trail and was riding, he knew not where, through darkness worse than night, himself an outlaw with an outlawed woman—at the best a chance woman, an adventuring woman, 262and as everybody could know, a claimed woman, product of dance hall and gaming resort, wife of a half-breed gambler, and now spoil of fist and revolver.

but that which burned me almost to madness, like hot lava underneath the deadening crust, was the thought that i had done a deed and a defensible deed, and was fleeing from it the same as a criminal. such a contingency never had occurred to me or i might have taken a different course, still with decency; although what course i could not figure.

we rode, our mules picking their way, occasionally stumbling on rocks and shrubs. at last she spoke in low, even tones.

“what do you expect to do with me, please?”

“we shall have to do whatever is best for yourself,” i managed to answer. “that will be determined when we reach the stage line, i suppose.”

“thank you. once at the stage line and i shall contrive. you must have no thought of me. i understand very well that we should not travel far in company—and you may not wish to go in my direction. you have plans of your own?”

“none of any great moment. everything has failed me, to date. there is only the one place left: new york state, where i came from. i probably can work my way back—at least, until i can recoup by telegraph message and the mails.”

“you have one more place than i,” she replied.she hesitated. “will you let me lend you some money?”

“i’ve been paid my wages due,” said i. “but,” i added, “you have a place, you have a home: benton.”

“oh, benton!” she laughed under breath. “never benton. i shall make shift without benton.”

“you will tell me, though?” i urged. “i must have your address, to know that you reach safety.”

“you are strictly business. i believe that i accused you before of being a yankee.” and i read sarcasm in her words.

her voice had a quality of definite estimation which nettled, humbled, and isolated me, as if i lacked in some essential to a standard set.

“so you are going home, are you?” she resumed. “with the clothes on your back, or will you stop at benton for your trunk?”

“with the clothes on my back,” i asserted bitterly. “i’ve no desire to see benton. the trunk can be shipped to me.”

she said on, in her cool impersonal tone.

“that is the easiest way. you will live warm and comfortably. you will need to wear no belt weapon. the police will protect you. if a man injures you, you can summon him at law and wash your hands of him. instead of staking on your luck among new people, you can enter into business among your friends and win from them. you can marry the girl 264next door—or even take the chance of the one across the street, her parentage being comme il faut. you can tell stories of your trip into the far west; your children will love to hear of the rough mule-whacker trail—yes, you will have great tales but you will not mention that you killed a man who tried to kill you and then rode for a night with a strange woman alone at your stirrup. perhaps you will venture to revisit these parts by steam train, and from the windows of your coach point out the places where you suffered those hardships and adventures from which you escaped by leaving them altogether. your course is the safe course. by all means take it, mr. beeson, and have your trunk follow you.”

“that i shall do, madam,” i retorted. “the west and i have not agreed; and, i fear, never shall.”

“by honest confession, it has bested you; and in short order.”

“in short order, since you put it that way. only a fool doesn’t know when to quit.”

“the greatest fool is the one who fools himself, in the quitting as in other matters. but you will have no regrets—except about daniel, possibly.”

“none whatever, save the regret that i ever tried this country. i wish to god i had never seen it—i did not conceive that i should have to take a human life—should be forced to that—become like an outlaw in the night, riding for refuge——” and i choked passionately.265

“you deserve much sympathy,” she remarked, in that even tone.

i lapsed into a turbulence of voiceless rage at myself, at her, at daniel’s treachery, at all the train, at benton, and again at this damning predicament wherein i had landed. when i was bound to wrest free after having done my utmost, she appeared to be twitting me because i would not submit to farther use by her. i certainly had the right to extricate myself in the only way left.

so i conned over and over, and my heart gnawed, and the acid of vexation boiled in my throat, and despite the axle grease my arm nagged; while we rode unspeaking, like some guilty pair through purgatory.

my lip had subsided; the pistol wound was superficial. under different circumstances the way would have been full of beauty. the high desert stretched vastly, far, far, far before, behind, on either side, the parched gauntness of its daytime aspect assuaged and evanescent. for the moon, now risen, although on the wane, shed a light sufficient, whitening the rocks and the scattered low shrubs, painting the land with sharp black shadows, and enclosing us about with the mystery of great softly illumined spaces into which silent forms vanished as if tempting us aside. of these—rabbits, wolves, animals only to be guessed—there were many, like potential phantoms quickened by the touch of the moonbeams. mule-back, we twain towered, the sole intruders visible between the two elysians of glorified earth and beatific sky.

the course was southward. after a time it seemed to me that we were descending from the plateau; craunching gradually down a flank until, in a mile or so, we were again upon the level, cutting through another basin formed by the dried bed of an ancient lake whose waters had evaporated into deposits of salt and soda.

at first the mules had plodded with ears pricked forward, and with sundry snorts and stares as if they were seeing portents in the moonshine. eventually their imaginings dulled, so that they now moved careless of where or why, their heads drooped, their minds devoted to achieving what rest they might in the merely mechanical setting of hoof before hoof.

i could not but be aware of my companion. her hair glinted paly, for she rode bareheaded; her gown, tightened under her as she sat astride, revealed the lines of her boyish limbs. she was a woman, in any guise; and i being a man, protect her i should, as far as necessary. i found myself wishing that we could upturn something pleasant to talk about; it was ungracious, even wicked, to ride thus side by side through peace and beauty, with lips closed and war in the heart, and final parting as the main desire.

but her firm pose and face steadily to the fore invited with no sign; and after covertly stealing a glance or two at her clear unresponsive profile i still 267could manage no theme that would loosen my tongue. thereby let her think me a dolt. thank heaven, after another twenty-four hours at most it might not matter what she thought.

the drooning round of my own thoughts revolved over and over, and the scuffing gait of the mules upon way interminable began to numb me. lassitude seemed to be enfolding us both; i observed that she rode laxly, with hand upon the horn and a weary yielding to motion. words might have stirred us, but no words came. presently i caught myself dozing in the saddle, aroused only by the twitching of my wounded arm. then again i dozed, and kept dozing, fairly dead for sleep, until speak she did, her voice drifting as from afar but fetching me awake and blinking.

“hadn’t we better stop?” she repeated.

that was a curious sensation. when i stared about, uncomprehending, my view was shut off by a whiteness veiling the moon above and the earth below except immediately underneath my mule’s hoofs. she herself was a specter; the weeds that we brushed were spectral; every sound that we made was muffled, and in the intangible, opaquely lucent shroud which had enveloped us like the spirit of a sea there was no life nor movement.

“what’s the matter?” i propounded.

“the fog. i don’t know where we are.”

“oh! i hadn’t noticed.”

“no,” she said calmly. “you’ve been asleep.”

“haven’t you?”

“not lately. but i don’t think there’s any use in riding on. we’ve lost our bearings.”

she was ahead; evidently had taken the lead while i slept. that realization straightened me, shamed, in my saddle. the fog, fleecy, not so wet as impenetrable—when had it engulfed us?

“how long have we been in it?” i asked, thoroughly vexed.

“an hour, maybe. we rode right into it. i thought we might leave it, but we don’t. it’s as thick as ever. we ought to stop.”

“i suppose we ought,” said i.

and at the moment we entered into a sudden clearing amidst the fog enclosure: a tract of a quarter of an acre, like a hollow center, with the white walls held apart and the stars and moon faintly glimmering down through the mist roof overhead.

she drew rein and half turned in the saddle. i could see her face. it was dank and wan and heavy-eyed; her hair, somewhat robbed of its sheen, crowned with a pallid golden aureole.

“will this do? if we go on we’ll only be riding into the fog again.”

i was conscious of the thin, apparently distant piping of frogs.

“there seems to be a marsh beyond,” she uttered.

“yes, we’d better stop where we are,” i agreed. “then in the morning we can take stock.”

“in the morning, surely. we may not be far astray.” she swung off before i had awkwardly dismounted to help her. her limbs failed—my own were clamped by stiffness—and she staggered and collapsed with a little laugh.

“i’m tired,” she confessed. “wait just a moment.”

“you stay where you are,” i ordered, staggering also as i hastily landed. “i’ll make camp.”

but she would have none of that; pleaded my one-handedness and insisted upon coöperating at the mules. we seemed to be marooned upon a small rise of gravel and coarsely matted dried grasses. the animals were staked out, fell to nibbling. i sought a spot for our beds; laid down a buffalo robe for her and placed her saddle as her pillow. she sank with a sigh, tucking her skirt under her, and i folded the robe over.

her face gazed up at me; she extended her hand.

“you are very kind, sir,” she said, in a smile that pathetically curved her lips. there, at my knees, she looked so worn, so slight, so childish, so in need of encouragement that all was well and that she had a friend to serve her, that with a rush of sudden sympathy i would—indeed i could have kissed her, upon the forehead if not upon the lips themselves. it was an impulse well-nigh overmastering; an impulse that must have dazed me so that she saw or felt, for a tinge of pink swept into her skin; she withdrew her hand and settled composedly.

“good-night. please sleep. in the morning we’ll reach the stage road and your troubles will be near the end.”

under my own robe i lay for a long time reviewing past and present and discussing with myself the future. strangely enough the present occupied me the most; it incorporated with that future beyond the fog, and when i put her out back she came as if she were part and parcel of my life. there was a sense of balance; we had been associates, fellow tenants—in fact, she was entwined with the warp and woof of all my memories dating far back to my entrance, fresh and hopeful, into the new west. it rather flabbergasted me to find myself thinking that the future was going to be very tame; perhaps, as she had suggested, regretful. i had not apprehended that the end should be so drastic.

and whether the regrets would center upon my slinking home defeated, or in having definitely cast her away, puzzled me as sorely as it did to discover that i was well content to be here, with her, in our little clearing amidst the desert fog, listening to her soft breathing and debating over what she might have done had i actually kissed her to comfort her and assure her that i was not unmindful of her really brave spirit.

daniel had been disposed of, montoyo did not deserve her; i had won her, she could inspire and guide me if i stayed; and i saw myself staying, and i saw myself going home, and i already regretted a host of things, as a man will when at the forking of the trails.

the fog gently closed in during the night. when i awakened we were again enshrouded by the fleece of it, denser than when we had ridden through it, but now whiter with the dawn. as i gazed sleepily about i could just make out the forms of the two mules, standing motionless and huddled; i could see her more clearly, at shorter distance—her buffalo robe moist with the semblance of dew that had beaded also upon her massy hair.

evidently she had not stirred all night; might be still asleep. no; her eyes were open, and when i stiffly shifted posture she looked across at me.

“sh!” she warned, with quick shake of head. the same warning bade me listen. in a moment i heard voices.