She brought up her horse and saddled it, took a look around camp to see that everything was in shape--for she liked to leave things tidy, in case some of the neighbors should stop in--and was about to mount, when a man's head and shoulders appeared from behind her own cottonwood log. A glance showed her that it was the sheep-herder. His head was bare, his wild hair in his eyes. He got to his feet, his pistol in his hand. "I watched you," said he, sheathing the weapon, as if he had changed his mind about the use of it. "I knew you'd go!" "But I didn't intend to when I parted from you up there on the hill," she declared, greatly confused over being caught in this breach of faith with even a crazy man. "I considered that, too," said the philosopher. "But I watched you. I'll never be fool enough to entirely trust a woman again. You all lie!" She wondered how he had arrived there so quickly and silently, for he gave no evidence of fatigue or heat. She did not know the dry endurance which a life like his builds up in a man. Sheep-herders in that country are noted for their fleetness. It is a common saying of them that their heels are as light as their heads. But there he was, at any rate, and her good intentions toward Boyle must be surrendered. Conscience had a palliative in the fact that she had meant to go. "Heaven knows I have as little reason to wish him well as you!" said she, speaking in low voice, as if to herself, as she began to undo the saddle girth. "Stay here, then," said the sheep-herder, watching her with glistening eyes. "I'll kill him for both of us! Where is his camp?" "I don't know," she replied, shuddering. The demented shepherd's way of speaking of taking a human life, even though a worthless one, or a vicious one, was eager and hungry. He licked his lips like a dog. "You said he was camped on the river. Where?" "I don't know," she returned again. "I'll tell you," said he, staying her hand as she tugged on a strap. "Both of us will go! You shall ride, and I'll run beside you. But"--he bent over, grinding his teeth and growling between them--"you sha'n't help kill him! That's for me, alone!" She drew back from his proposal with a sudden realization of what a desperately brutal thing this unstrung creature was about to do, with a terrible arraignment of self-reproach because she had made no effort to dissuade him or place an obstacle in the way of accomplishing his design. It was not strange, thought she, with a revulsion of self-loathing, that he accepted her as a willing accomplice and proposed that she bear a hand. Even her effort to ride and find Boyle had been half-hearted. She might have gone, she told herself, before the herder arrived. "No, no! I couldn't go! I couldn't!" she cried, forgetting that she was facing an unbalanced man, all the force of pleading in her voice. "No, you want to kill him yourself!" he charged savagely. "Give me that horse--give it to me, I tell you! I'll go alone!"