And fear was not the only emotion that struck at his heart. Mingled with his anxiety was a rushing glow of happiness, of fierce exultation such as he had never experienced in his life. The fact that under his care, alone in the Arizona night, was the girl whom he loved, thrilled and shook him. The soft note of confidence in her voice, her unconscious appeal to him for protection, made the stinging blood rush to his face, made him crush the bridle in a grip as of a vise. “Alone!” he murmured. “Is there in God’s world any such aloneness as two together when the world is a countless distance away, when each second is precious as a lifetime!” His voice, when he spoke to her, sounded to him dry and forced. It was only by superhuman control that when he guided her horse to the right or left he did not cry out his need of her. Yet through all the electric silence he knew that he had no right to speak of love, no right even to love her. His mood was of that intensity which cares not for its reaction on others. Through it all he did not think or imagine that she could care; and yet he was happy, happy with that joy of a great emotion so sweeping as not to know pain from pleasure and not to care. For the first time in his life he realized what it was to live, not to think or to care, but to _live_. And she? She could not have been a woman and not have known, even though the imprisoned words had not escaped; but from knowing to caring is a very long road, and not only has it many turnings, but often it doubles upon itself. After an hour of this blind riding, they suddenly found themselves following a well-beaten track. A tip of bright gold appeared from behind the black mountains, then a crescent, then a semicircle, and almost before they realized it the trail was flooded with the splendor of the full-rounded moon. As they watched, they were startled by the soft thud of a horse’s hoofs behind them. Stephen, a bit uneasy as to the newcomer, wheeled his horse sharply to meet him, and slipped his riding gauntlet from his right hand, prepared to shoot or to shake as the occasion might necessitate. He was greatly surprised, when the stranger drew abreast of them, to hear him exclaim in a cheerful bass voice: “Miss Cameron! How did you come here?” “That is just what we want to know. The only thing we want to know more is how to get out by any other way than past the cliff which we almost rode over in the darkness. This is Mr. Loring, Mr. Bingham, one of the hoist engineers at Quentin. Darkness overtook us while we were riding, and I thought that I knew a short cut. I did not, it seems, and here we are.”