"You've got to take him," she said, "if it kills them. He would have fallen off a minute ago if I hadn't put my arm around him."

"Come on, then," he answered with a surly look at David. "Come on and ride, while the rest of us get along the best way we can."

"He can't help it," she urged in an angry whisper. "You talk as if he was doing it on purpose."

David slid off his horse and made for the wagon with reeling steps. The other man followed muttering.

"Help him," she called. "Don't you see he can hardly stand?"

At the wagon wheel Daddy John hoisted him in with vigorous and ungentle hands. Crawling into the back the sick man fell prone with a groan. Courant, who had heard them and turned to watch, came riding up.

"What is it?" he said sharply. "The mules given out?"

"Not they," snorted Daddy John, at once all belligerent loyalty to Julia and her mates, "it's this d - d cry baby again," and he picked up the reins exclaiming in tones of fond urgence:

"Come now, off again. Keep up your hearts There's water and grass ahead. Up there, Julia, honey!"

The long team, crouching in the effort to start the wagon, heaved it forward, and the old man, leaping over the broken sage, kept the pace beside them. Courant, a few feet in advance, said over his shoulder:

"What's wrong with him now?"

"Oh, played out, I guess. She," with a backward jerk of his head, "won't have it any other way. No good telling her it's nerve not body that he ain't got."

The mountain man looked back toward the pathway between the slashed and broken bushes. He could see Susan's solitary figure, David's horse following.

"What's she mind for?" he said.

"Because she's a woman and they're made that way. She's more set on that chump than she'd be on the finest man you could bring her if you hunted the world over for him."

They fared on in silence, the soft soil muffling their steps. The wagon lurched on a hummock and David groaned.

"Are you meaning she cares for him?" asked Courant.

"All her might," answered the old man. "Ain't she goin' to marry the varmint?"

It was an hour for understanding, no matter how bitter. Daddy John's own dejection made him unsparing. He offered his next words as confirmation of a condition that he thought would kill all hope in the heart of the leader.

"Last night he made her get him water - the store we had left if you hadn't found any. Twict in the night while I was asleep she took and gave it to him. Then when I found it out she let me think she took it for herself," he spat despondently. "She the same as lied for him. I don't want to hear no more after that."

The mountain man rode with downdrooped head. Daddy John, who did not know what he did, might well come to such conclusions. He knew the secret of the girl's contradictory actions. He looked into her perturbed spirit and saw how desperately she clung to the letter of her obligation, while she repudiated the spirit. Understanding her solicitude for David, he knew that it was strengthened by the consciousness of her disloyalty. But he felt no tenderness for these distracted feminine waverings. It exhilarated him to think that while she held to the betrothed of her father's choice and the bond of her given word, her hold would loosen at his wish. As he had felt toward enemies that he had conquered - crushed and subjected by his will - he felt toward her. It was a crowning joy to know that he could make her break her promise, turn her from her course of desperate fidelity, and make her his own, not against her inclination, but against her pity, her honor, her conscience.