"No," answered Bud, drawing his hand away, "that's just what I won't do! And I'll tell you why. That country up there is full of rebels--the lowest kind there are. It just takes one shot to lay me out or cripple one of our horses. Then I'd have to make a fight for it--but what would happen to you?" "I'd fight, too!" spoke up Gracia resolutely. "I'm not afraid." "No," grumbled Bud, "you don't know them rebels. You've been shut up in a house all the time--if you'd been through what I have in the last six months you'd understand what I mean." "If Phil were here, _he'd_ take me!" countered Gracia, and then Bud lost his head. "Yes," he burst out, "that's jest what's the matter with the crazy fool! That's jest why he's up across the line now a hollering for me to save his girl! He's brave, is he? Well, why don't he come down, then, and save you himself? Because he's afraid to! He's afraid of getting shot or going up against Manuel del Rey. By grab! it makes me tired the way you people talk! If he'd done what I told him to in the first place he wouldn't have got into this jack-pot!" "Oh, my!" exclaimed Gracia, aghast. "Why, what is the matter with you? And what did you tell him to do?" "I told him to mind his own business," answered Hooker bluntly. "And what did he say?" "He said he'd try anything--once!" Bud spat out the phrase vindictively, for his blood was up and his heart was full of bitterness. "Oh, dear!" faltered Gracia. "And so you do not think that Phil is brave?" "He's brave to start things," sneered Bud, "but not to carry 'em through!" For a moment Gracia huddled up against a pillar, her hand against her face, as if to ward off a blow. Then she lowered it slowly and moved reluctantly away. "I must go now," she said, and Bud did not offer to stay her, for he saw what his unkindness had done. "I am sorry!" she added pitifully, but he did not answer. There was nothing that he could say now. In a moment of resentment, driven to exasperation by her taunts, he had forgotten his pledge to his pardner and come between him and his girl. That which he thought wild horses could not draw from him had flashed out in a fit of anger--and the damage was beyond amendment, for what he had said was the truth. XXIII There are two things, according to the saying, which cannot be recalled--the sped arrow and the spoken word. Whether spoken in anger or in jest our winged thoughts will not come back to us and, where there is no balm for the wound we have caused, there is nothing to do but let it heal. Bud Hooker was a man of few words, and slow to speak ill of any one, but some unfamiliar devil had loosened his tongue and he had told the worst about Phil. Certainly if a man were the bravest of the brave, certainly if he loved his girl more than life itself--he would not be content to hide above the line and pour out his soul on note-paper. But to tell it to the girl--that was an unpardonable sin!