"What!" He wheeled on her with an astonished smile on his face.
Her eyebrows lifted in ironic demurrer. "I think you must let me be the judge of that," she said gently.
"Walk!" he reiterated. "Why, you're walked out. You couldn't go a mile. What do you take me for? Think I'm going to let you come that on me."
"I don't quite see how you can help it, Mr. Neill," she answered.
"Help it! Why, it ain't reasonable. Of course you'll ride."
She set off briskly, almost jauntily, despite her tired feet and aching limbs.
"Well, if that don't beat--" He broke off to laugh at the situation. After she had gone twenty steps he called after her in a voice that did not suppress its chuckle: "You ain't going the right direction, Miss Kinney."
She whirled round on him in anger. How dared he laugh at her?
She was almost reduced to stamping her foot.
Without condescending to ask more definite instructions she struck off at haphazard, and by chance guessed right. There was nothing for it but to pursue. Wherefore the man pursued. The horse at his heels hampered his stride, but he caught up with her soon.
"Somebody's acting mighty foolish," he said.
"If I need punishing, ma'am, don't punish yourself, but me. You ain't able to walk and that's a fact."
She gave her silent attention strictly to the business of making progress through the cactus and the sand.
"Say I'm all you think I am. You can trample on me proper after we get to the Mal Pais. Don't have to know me at all if you don't want to. Won't you ride, ma'am? Please!"
His distress filled her with a fierce delight. She stumbled defiantly forward.
He pondered a while before he asked quietly:
"No, I'm not. Better go on. Pray don't let me detain you."
"All right. See that peak with the spur to it? Well, you keep that directly in line and make straight for it. I'll say good-by now, ma'am. I got to hurry to be in time for dinner. I'll send some one out from the camp to meet you that ain't such a villain as I am."
He swung to the saddle, put spurs to his pony, and cantered away. She could scarce believe it, even when he rode straight over the hill without a backward glance. He would never leave her. Surely he would not do that. She could never reach the camp, and he knew it. To be left alone in the desert again; the horror of it broke her down, but not immediately. She went proudly forward with her head in the air at first. He might look round. Perhaps he was peeping at her from behind some cholla. She would not gratify him by showing any interest in his whereabouts. But presently she began to lag, to scan draws and mesas anxiously for him, even to call aloud in an ineffective little voice which the empty hills echoed faintly. But from him there came no answer.