"I got a hunch there will be more skulls than anything else in Asia, too. No, I don't think they're going to win. I don't think anybody is going to win this one, except the people who have enough sense to hide." Jake came out of his dreaming and put his hand on Cal's shoulder. "Kurt's all right," he said. It was obvious that Cal did not think very highly of this recommendation. "He's my pal," Jake continued. "Let him join us. He'll make a good hand. Besides, me and him were buddies. And there was a girl--" He stopped speaking and broke into dark musing as the memory of his wife came again into his mind. "Were you with this woman?" Cal asked. "He never was with this woman in his life!" Jake screamed. "She was mine, I tell you. Mine!" "Shut up, crazy head." "Tell him, Kurt. Tell him Marcia was mine." "Sure, Jake," Zen soothed. "Everybody knew you and Marcia were that way. Cal and I were talking about another woman." "Oh. That's different. But I don't want to hear either of you say that Marcia didn't belong to me." The wolf-faced man looked as if he was about to use his gun on Jake. "You stinking nut head, you stay out of this!" "All I was trying to do was to tell you Kurt was my pal." "All right, you've told me. Now shut up." Cal turned to Zen again. "About this woman, colonel? Were you together?" "No," Zen said. "But she yelled out to you when me and Ed grabbed her." "I heard her." "You did?" Cal's finger went around the trigger of the gun. "Yeah. I was following her but I didn't know she knew it until she yelled." "Oh." Cal kept his finger on the trigger. "Why were you following her?" "Hell, don't be stupid!" Zen exploded. "Why would any man follow a woman like that?" A trace of a grin went across the wolf face at this answer. Cal licked his lips. This was an answer he understood. "I don't blame you for that. But why was she coming up here?" "That I don't know," Zen said. "I don't think it made much difference anyhow. As soon as night came--" He squinted at the sun. "Do you think she might be a spy for Cuso heading for his camp to report?" Zen felt his lower jaw sag. This was a thought that had not crossed his mind. He knew only too well that the Asiatic had spies in as many places as he could get them. Cuso's survival depended in a large degree on knowing how many troops were moving against him, how they were armed and over what passes they were coming. "I see by your face that you had never thought of that," Cal said. "Then what is she doing up here?" "I don't know. I realized she was ahead of me about a mile back. As to what she is doing, maybe she got tired of all that down there too, and decided to come up here and live in the mountains?" "A woman in this wilderness?" "Some women have delusions that they can return to the primitive and make a go of it." "And maybe she had some other idea," Cal said. Zen shrugged. "Knowing this may be important to us," Cal said.