"I won't go!" I cried.

Without any more words Dick led me down the street to a rude corral; here
he rapidly saddled and packed his horses. The only time he spoke was when
he asked me where I had tied my mustangs. Soon we were hurrying out through
the slash toward the forest. Dick's troubled face kept down my resentment,
but my heart grew like lead. What an ending to my long-cherished trip to
the West! It had lasted two days. The disappointment seemed more than I
could bear.

We found the mustangs as I had left them, and the sight of Hal and the
feeling of the saddle made me all the worse. We did not climb the foot-hill
by the trail which the Mexican had used, but took a long, slow ascent far
round to the left. Dick glanced back often, and when we reached the top he
looked again in a way to convince me that he had some apprehensions of
being followed.

Twilight of that eventful day found us pitching camp in a thickly timbered
hollow. I could not help dwelling on how different my feelings would have
been if this night were but the beginning of many nights with Dick. It was
the last, and the more I thought about it the more wretched I grew. Dick
rolled in his blanket without saying even good-night, and I lay there
watching the veils and shadows of firelight flicker on the pines, and
listening, to the wind. Gradually the bitterness seemed to go away; my body
relaxed and sank into the soft, fragrant pine-needles; the great shadowy
trees mixed with the surrounding darkness. When I awoke it was broad
daylight, and Dick was shaking my arm.

"Hunt up the horses while I get the grub ready," he said, curtly.