observed that she was holding to the cantel of his saddle.

"Look here," he said suddenly, "hadn't you better catch hold of
me?" She shook her head vigorously and made two not-to-be-rendered
sounds that meant:

"No, indeed."

"Well, if this were your sweetheart you'd take hold of him,
wouldn't you?"

Again she gave a vigorous shake of the head.

"Well, if he saw you riding behind me, he wouldn't like it, would
he?"

"She didn't keer," she said, but Hale did; and when he heard the
galloping of horses behind him, saw two men coming, and heard one
of them shouting--"Hyeh, you man on that yaller mule, stop thar"--
he shifted his revolver, pulled in and waited with some
uneasiness. They came up, reeling in their saddles--neither one
the girl's sweetheart, as he saw at once from her face--and began
to ask what the girl characterized afterward as "unnecessary
questions": who he was, who she was, and where they were going.
Hale answered so shortly that the girl thought there was going to
be a fight, and she was on the point of slipping from the mule.

"Sit still," said Hale, quietly. "There's not going to be a fight
so long as you are here."