Those were things to think about. Those were pictures for a lonely
man.

She had not been too proud and cold to let him help her. In her
fatigue she had allowed him to lift her and to make her more
comfortable. Hot against his palms--palms unaccustomed to the
touch of woman's flesh--he felt the contact of her naked feet, as
at the moment when he had placed them in the cooling water. Her
feeble resistance had only called attention to her sex--to the
slim whiteness of her ankles beneath her short riding-skirt.

Following his first amazement at beholding her had come a
fantastic explanation of her presence--for a moment or two it had
seemed as if the fates had taken heed of his yearnings and had
sent her to him out of the dusk--wild fancies, like these, bother
men who are much alone. Of course he had not dreamed that she was
the mistress of Las Palmas. That altered matters, and yet--they
were to spend a long idle day together. If the Mexican did not
come, another night like this would follow, and she was virtually
his prisoner. Perhaps, after all--

Dave Law stirred nervously and sighed.

"Don't this beat hell?" he murmured.




II