There was no call for an answer and he made none. He stepped to his horse's head, lifted the wincing forefoot very tenderly, and stooping close to it looked at it for a long time. The girl was behind the broad, stooping back. Impulsively her hand crept into the bosom of her dress, her face going steadily white as her fingers curved and tightened about the grip of the small calibre revolver she carried there. And then she jerked her hand out, empty. She saw him straighten up, heard again the long, heavy sigh and marked how his face was convulsed with rage. "I don't know why a man did that." He was only ten steps away and yet she turned her head a little sideways that she might catch the low words. She shivered. His voice was cold and hard and deadly. It was difficult for her to believe that in reality he had not forgotten her presence. "No, I don't know why a man did that. But I'm going to know. Yes, I'm going to know if it takes fifty years." "Where is my trail?" she called sharply. "I am going." "You couldn't find it alone. I'm going with you." Her scorn of him leaped higher in her eyes. It was her thought that he was going to ride this poor, tortured brute. For she knew that there was no other horse in the barn or about the camp. But he was quietly loosening his cinch, lifting down the heavy Mexican saddle, removing the bit from his horse's mouth. "What are you going to do?" She bit her lips after the question, but it had leaped out involuntarily. "I'm going to leave him here for the present. The wound will heal up after a while." With the saddle thrown over his own shoulders, he ran a gentle hand over the soft nose of his horse which was thrust affectionately against his side, and turned away. She watched him, expecting him to go back to the barn to leave his saddle and bridle. But instead he set his face toward the hills beyond the cabin, where she supposed the trail was. "I'll pick up another horse at the next ranch," he offered casually by way of explanation. "And we had better hit the trail. It's getting late." Wordlessly she followed, her eyes held, fascinated by the great, tall bulk of him swinging on in front of her, carrying the heavy saddle with as little care to its weight as if he had been entirely unconscious of it, as no doubt such a man could be. She knew that already he had ridden sixty miles today and that it was seven miles farther to the ranch where he would get another horse. And yet there he strode on, swiftly, as though he had rested all day and now were going to walk the matter of a few yards.