Harlan had not seen Deveny or Rogers or Lawson after the scene in front of the sheriff's office. He had talked for some time with Gage, waiting until Barbara Morgan recovered slightly from the shock she had suffered. Then when he had told her that he intended to accompany her to the Rancho Seco--and she had offered no objection--he had gone on a quest for her pony, finding him in the stable in the rear of the Eating-House. So far as Harlan knew, no one in Lamo besides Sheriff Gage had watched the departure of himself and Barbara. And there had been no word spoken between the two as they rode away--Lamo becoming at last an almost invisible dot in the great yawning space they left behind them. Barbara felt a curious unconcern for what was happening; her brain was in a state of dull apathy, resulting from shock and the period of dread under which she had lived for more than a day and a night. She did not seem to care what happened to her. She knew, to be sure, that she was riding toward the Rancho Seco with a man whom she had heard called an outlaw by other men; she was aware that she must be risking something by accepting his escort--and yet she could not bring herself to feel that dread fear that she knew any young woman in her position should feel. It seemed to her that nothing mattered now--very much. Her father was dead--murdered by some men--two of whom had been punished by death, and another--a mysterious person called the "Chief"--who would be killed as soon as she could find him. That resolution was deeply fixed in her mind. Her gaze though, after a while, went to Harlan, and for many miles she studied him without his suspecting. And gradually she began to think about him, to wonder why he had protected her from the man, Higgins, and why he was going with her to the Rancho Seco. She provided--after a while--an answer to her first question: He had protected her because she had run into his arms in her effort to escape the clutches of the man who had pursued her--Higgins. She remembered that while she had been at the window, watching Harlan when he had dismounted in front of the sheriff's office, he had seemed to make a favorable impression upon her. That was the reason, when she had seen him before her in the street, after he had shot Laskar, she had selected him as a protector. That had seemed to be the logical thing to do, for he had arrayed himself against her enemies in killing Laskar, and it was reasonable to suppose--conceding Laskar and Higgins were leagued with Deveny--that Harlan would protect her. It all seemed exceedingly natural, that far. It was when she began to wonder why Harlan was with her now that an element of mystery seemed to rule. And she was puzzled. She began to speculate over Harlan, and her mental efforts in that direction banished the somber thoughts that had almost overwhelmed her after the discovery of her father's death. Yet they had ridden more than ten miles before she spoke.