From one cow trail to another he picked out a way to the north, but the lay of the ground threw him to the east and there were no passes between the hills. The country was rocky, with long parallel ridges extending to the northeast, and when he saw where the way was taking him Bud called a halt till dawn. By the very formation he was being gradually edged back toward Fortuna, and it would call for fresh horses and a rested Gracia to outstrip their pursuers by day. If the _rurales_ traveled by landmarks, heading for the northern passes in an effort to outride and intercept him, they might easily cut him off at the start; but if they trailed him--and he devoutly hoped they would--then they would have a tangled skein to follow and he could lose them in the broken country to the north. So thinking, he cut grass among the rocks, spread down their saddle-blankets, and watched over the browsing horses while Gracia stretched out on the bed. After a day of excitement and a night of hard riding there is no call for a couch of down, and as the morning star appeared in the east she slept while Bud sat patiently by. It was no new task to him, this watching and waiting for the dawn. For weeks at a time, after a hard day's work at the branding, he had stood guard half the night. Sleep was a luxury to him, like water to a mountain-sheep--and so were all the other useless things that town-bred people required. People like Gracia, people like Phil--they were different in all their ways. To ride, to fight, to find the way--there he was a better man than Phil; but to speak to a woman, to know her ways, and to enter into her life--there he was no man at all. He sighed now as he saw the first flush of dawn and turned to where she slept, calm and beautiful, in the solemn light. How to waken her, even that was a question, but the time had come to start. Already, from Fortuna, Del Rey and his man-killing _rurales_ would be on the trail. He would come like the wind, that dashing little captain, and nothing but a bullet would stop him, for his honor was at stake. Nay, he had told Bud in so many words: "She is mine, and no man shall come between us!" It would be hard now if the _rurales_ should prove too many for him--if a bullet should check him in their flight and she be left alone. But how to wake her! He tramped near as he led up the unwilling mounts; then, as time pressed, he spoke to her, and at last he knelt at her side. "Say!" he called, and when that did not serve he laid his hand on her shoulder. "Wake up!" he said, shaking her gently. "Wake up, it's almost day!" Even as he spoke he went back to the phrase of the cow-camp--where men rise before it is light. But Gracia woke up wondering and stared about her strangely, unable to understand. "Why--what is it?" she cried. Then, as he spoke again and backed away, she remembered him with a smile. "Oh," she said, "is it time to get up? Where are we, anyway?"