"Don't misjudge me, girl," he said heavily. "Rather than see your little finger bruised I'd have a man drive a knife in me! I'm just blundering along now ... blundering ... trying to see daylight. I won't hurt you. There's nothing on earth or in Heaven so sure as that. But don't ask me to let you go!" She made him no answer. She began thinking of his wounds; he gave them such scant attention! He should be caring for them; what he should do was to hasten to a surgeon. She wondered if still he clung to his conviction, the natural one after all, that she had shot him? And she wondered, as she had done so many a time before: "Who had shot him?" Whose hand that which she had seen reach through her window and snatch up her revolver and fire the cowardly shot? Taggart, only a few hours ago, had said: "I saw! I was right there!" ... "Was it Jim Taggart who shot you in the back last night?" she demanded suddenly. "Yes," he said. "At least, I think so." "Is he that kind of man?" Now his eyes were keen and hard upon hers. "I begin to think that he is, girl," he said shortly. "Why?" She shrugged and again turned away. He lumbered to his feet. Thor, knowing where he was going, barked and leaped ahead. "Come, I'll show you where we pitch camp." She looked about her. Mere madness to attempt flight now; he would bear down upon her before she had run twenty steps. And did she want to run just now? She had her own measure of curiosity.... Was it only that?... and she had, locked away securely in her breast, her absolute positive knowledge that she had nothing to fear at his hands. She rose and followed him. Suddenly he swerved about, confronting her, his eyes stern, his voice hard with the emotion riding him. "Madman I may be," he said. "Fool, I am not, praise God! Last night I heard; you could have chucked that rifle into Taggart's hands and could have gone free yourself ... and by now I'd be a dead man! But, glory be, there isn't a streak of yellow in your whole glorious being!" The blood ran up into her face; it made her hot throughout her whole body. Praise, from him, to stir her like that! Her eyes flashed back angrily, for she was angry with herself. "Come," he muttered. "Talk's cheap at any time. And I'm to show you where we make our first home." With her teeth sharply catching up her underlip, she held her silence. He went on some two-score paces and stopped; with a sudden gesture he said: "Here I've spent, God knows how many nights, when I had to be off by myself! No roof for us, girl, but who wants a roof with that sky above us?"