"W'y, sure not!" cried Hooker heartily. "I knowed you was fooling! Didn't I laugh at you? Say, what kind of a feller do you think I am, anyway? D'ye think I'd get an Indian to do my killing?" "Oh, then didn't you?" she cried, suddenly brightening up. "You know, you talk so rough sometimes--and I never do know what you mean! You said you guessed you'd have to kill him for me, you know, and--oh, it was too awful! I must be getting foolish, I'm so tired, but--what _did_ you tell that Indian?" Bud glanced at her sharply for a moment and then decided to humor her. Perhaps, if he could get her quieted, she would stop talking and begin to eat. "He asked me who was after us," he said, "and I told him it was Del Rey." "Yes, and what did he say then?" "He didn't say nothing--jest lined out for the pass." "And didn't you say you wanted--him--killed?" "No!" burst out Bud, half angrily. "Haven't I told you once? I did not! That Indian had reasons of his own, believe me--he's got a scar along his ribs where Del Rey shot him with a six-shooter! And, furthermore," he added, as her face cleared at this explanation of the mystery, "you'd better try to take me at my word for the rest of this trip! Looks to me like you've been associating with these Mexicans too much!" "Why, what do you mean?" she demanded curtly. "I mean this," answered Hooker, "being as we're on the subject again. Ever since I've knowed you you've been talking about brave men and all that; and more'n once you've hinted that I wasn't brave because I wouldn't fight." "I'd jest like to tell you, to put your mind at rest, that my father was a sergeant in the Texas Rangers and no hundred Mexicans was ever able to make him crawl. He served for ten years on the Texas border and never turned his back to no man--let alone a Mex. I was brought up by him to be peaceable and quiet, but don't you never think, because I run away from Manuel del Rey, that I was afraid to face him." He paused and regarded her intently, and her eyes fell before his. "You must excuse me," she said, looking wistfully away, "I did not--I did not understand. And so the poor Yaqui was only avenging an injury?" she went on, reaching out one slender hand toward the food. "Ah, I can understand it now--he looked so savage and fierce. But"--she paused again, set back by a sudden thought--"didn't you know he would kill him?" "Yes, ma'am," answered Hooker quietly, "I did!" "Then--then why didn't you--" "That was between them two," he replied doggedly. "Del Rey shot him once when he was wounded and left him for dead. He must have killed some of his people, too; his wife mebbe, for all I know. He never would talk about it, but he come back to get his revenge. I don't shoot no man from cover myself, but that ain't it--it was between them two." "And you?" she suggested. "If _you_ had fought Del Rey?" "I would have met him in the open," said Hooker. "And yet--"