She walked away a little and stood apart with her face to the sunset, a lonely figure, silent, aloof, fitting perfectly into the picture. Disston tried to analyze his feelings, the emotions she inspired in him as he looked at her, but his lines of thought with their many ramifications always came back to the starting point--to the sure knowledge that he wanted her tremendously, that he yearned and hungered for her with every fiber of his nature. She was the last woman in the world who would seem to need protection, yet he had a savage primitive desire to protect her, to put his arm about her and defy the world, if need be. Beth's helpless femininity inspired no such passionate chivalry. He saved her annoyances, shielded her, helped her over the rough places, from habit--but this was different. And it had been so, he reflected, from that night at the Prouty House when he would gladly have fought those who had slighted and hurt her, when he would have shed blood, had his judgment not restrained him. Ever since then the least insinuation or slur against Kate had set his blood tingling, and Beth's ridicule had been one of the hardest things he had found to overlook in her. And, too, the curious serenity, the sense of completeness which came to him when she sat quietly beside him, puzzled him. He wondered if it was only a temporary state of mind, or would it last forever if he were with her. He would conquer himself--of course, he must; and he had proved by his life thus far that he was strong enough to do anything he had to. Suddenly Hugh felt a keen desire to know what she was thinking, that she was so long silent, and he asked her. He was not sure that she answered his question when she said prosaically: "You had better go on down to camp and feed your horse--it's over the ridge there; make a fire and put on the tea kettle. I'll be down in half an hour or three-quarters." Disston lingered to watch her as she pulled the bedroll from her horse; and, clearing a space with her foot, freeing it of sticks and pebbles, spread out the canvas, pulling the "tarp" over a pillow beneath which he noticed a box of cartridges and a six-shooter. "For close work," she said, with a short laugh, observing his interest. He did not join her; instead his brows contracted. "I can't bear to think of you going through such hardships." "This isn't hardship--I'm used to it--I like it. I like to get awake in the night and look at the stars and to feel the wind in my face. When it rains, I pull the tarp over my head, and I love to listen to the patter on it. The sheep 'bed' all around me, and some of them lie on the corners, so it's not lonely." She said it with a touch of defiance, as though she resented his pity and wished him to believe there was no room for it. "You see," she added, "I'm a typical sheepherder, even to mumbling to myself occasionally."