In a very few minutes we were back with the rifles, an ample supply of cartridges, our canteens, and a blanket I had brought in case we decided to slip away at night. Helping her over the parapet I followed, and we stood looking intently for a sign of foes, but the waving grass spoke only of a brisk wind. It might be a half an hour before Efaw Kotee's band could get within range of us. Twice I whispered her name, but she would not answer, so I turned her around until she had to face me. "I have the right to speak now," I said gently, "because this may be the last of things. The next few hours will decide. You understand, don't you, and know that my words are their own excuse?" There was a serious, calm mystery in her look that answered mine with simple courage, as she whispered: "Yes, I understand." "We can't die," I drew her close to me, "because I love you--I love you!" For a quick moment, and then gone, a light shone in her eyes--as though some fire raging below had been swept through the entirety of her being. Her fingers that had been clutching my shoulders relaxed, and very softly her arms crept around my neck, as she murmured: "No more than I do you!" It might have been a minute or a year that we drifted in a rapturously agonizing kiss; but slowly her eyes opened, her lips sighed and, touching them to my cheek, she whispered my name over and over again. "We'll win to-day," I cried, giving the prairie a searching look above her head, "and after that there's a kingdom waiting for you here!" "I can feel it beating," she whispered adorably. "But if we----" She could not say it, but let her moist lips cling to mine as if challenging Death to part us. Who dares measure time when Cupid perches on the clock! 'Twas a wise providence that gave severe St. Gregory the making of our calendar, and not St. Anthony, else some minutes might be spun to days, and hours squeezed to the fraction of a second. But the ever present danger had not at any time quite ceased to pierce the mist of our paradise. She knew I was keeping a careful watch, even while I held her. Now she drew away, and crossed her arms upon the parapet. "When things begin to happen," I said, "you must sit on the ground. I won't risk your lovely head above the wall!" "Why?" she asked. "Aren't two rifles better than one?" "Yes," I admitted, "but I can't shoot unless you're safe." "Then don't think of me, at all, for I promise to do whatever you say. Look," she pointed suddenly. "There they are!--I believe every one of them! Oh, I wonder if they've killed Echochee!" I, too, wondered; for surely here was the gang that had pursued them--quite a mile out on the prairie, to be sure, but unquestionably Efaw Kotee's band, showing as a black smudge above the grass. Whether this pack of human wolves had lost the trail of Smilax I would not try to guess, for it was enough to know that they had found our own.