"Ye-s," she answered tremulously, dreading the ordeal, dreading still more the thought of her appearance when she would finally reach the bank.

His pony was in motion instantly, pulling strongly, following out its custom of dragging a roped steer, and Sheila slipped off the saddle and into the water, trying to keep her feet under her. But she overbalanced and fell with a splash, and in this manner was dragged, gasping, strangling, and dripping wet, to the bank.

Dakota was off his pony long before she had reached the solid ground and was at her side before she had cleared the water, helping her to her feet and loosening the noose about her waist.

"Don't, please!" she said frigidly, as his hand touched her.

"Then I won't." He smiled and stepped back while she fumbled with the rope and finally threw it off. "What made you try that shallow?" he asked.

"I suppose I have a right to ride where I please?" He had saved her life, of course, and she was very grateful to him, but that was no reason why he should presume to speak familiarly to her. She really believed--in spite of the obligation under which he had placed her--that she hated him more than ever.

But he did not seem to be at all disturbed over her manner. On the contrary, looking at him and trying her best to be scornful, he seemed to be laboring heroically to stifle some emotion--amus.e.m.e.nt, she decided--and she tried to freeze him with an icy stare.

"Now, you don't look dignified, for a fact," he grinned, brazenly allowing his mirth to show in his eyes and in the sudden, curved lines that had come around his mouth. "Still, you couldn't expect to look dignified, no matter how hard you tried, after being dragged through the water like that. Now could you?"

"It isn't the first time that I have amused you!" she said with angry sarcasm.

A cloud pa.s.sed over his face, but was instantly superseded by a smile.

"So you haven't forgotten?" he said.

She did not deign to answer, but turned her back to him and looked at her partially submerged pony.

"Want to try it again?" he said mockingly.

She turned slowly and looked at him, her eyes flashing.

"Will you please stop being silly!" she said coldly. "If you were human you would be trying to get my pony out of that sand instead of standing there and trying to be smart!"

"Did you think that I was going to let him drown?" His smile had in it a quality of subtle mockery which made her eyes blaze with anger. Evidently he observed it for he smiled as he walked to his pony, coiling his rope and hanging it from the pommel of the saddle. "I certainly am not going to let your horse drown," he a.s.sured her, "for in this country horses are sometimes more valuable than people."

"Then why didn't you save the pony first?" she demanded hotly.

"How could I," he returned, fixing her with an amused glance, "with you looking so appealingly at me?"

She turned abruptly and left him, walking to a flat rock and seating herself upon it, wringing the water from her skirts, trying to get her hair out of her eyes, feeling very miserable, and wishing devoutly that Dakota might drown himself--after he had succeeded in pulling the pony from the quicksand.

But Dakota did not drown himself. Nor did he pull the pony out of the quicksand. She watched him as he rode to the water's edge and looked at the animal. Her heart sank when he turned and looked gravely at her.

"I reckon your pony's done for, ma'am," he said. "There isn't anything of him above the sand but his head and a little of his neck. He's too far gone, ma'am. In half an hour he'll----"

Sheila stood up, wet and excited. "Can't you do something?" she pleaded.

"Couldn't you pull him out with your lariat--like you did me?"

There was a grim humor in his smile. "What do you reckon would have happened to you if I had tried to pull you out by the neck?" he asked.

"But can't you do _something_?" she pleaded, her icy att.i.tude toward him melting under the warmth of her affection and sympathy for the unfortunate pony. "Please do something!" she begged.

His face changed expression and he tapped one of his holsters significantly. "There's only this left, I reckon. Pulling him out by the neck would break it, sure. And it's never a nice thing to see--or hear--a horse or a cow sinking in quicksand. I've seen it once or twice and----"

Sheila shuddered and covered her face with her hands, for his words had set her imagination to working.

"Oh!" she said and became silent.

Dakota stood for a moment, watching her, his face grim with sympathy.

"It's too bad," he said finally. "I don't like to shoot him, any more than you want to see it done. I reckon, though, that the pony would thank me for doing it if he could have anything to say about it." He walked over close to her, speaking in a low voice. "You can't stay here, of course.

You'll have to take my horse, and you'll have to go right now, if you don't want to be around when the pony----"

"Please don't," she said, interrupting him. He relapsed into silence, and stood gravely watching her as she resumed her toilet.

She disliked to accept his offer of the pony, but there seemed to be no other way. She certainly could not walk to the Double R ranchhouse, even to satisfy a desire to show him that she would not allow him to place her under any obligation to him.

"I've got to tell you one thing," he said presently, standing erect and looking earnestly at her. "If Duncan is responsible for your safety in this country he isn't showing very good judgment in letting you run around alone. There are dangers that you know nothing about, and you don't know a thing about the country. Someone ought to take care of you."

"As you did, for example," she retorted, filled with anger over his present solicitation for her welfare, as contrasted to his treatment of her on another occasion.

A slow red filled his cheeks. Evidently he did possess _some_ self-respect, after all. Contrition, too, she thought she could detect in his manner and in his voice.

"But I didn't hurt you, anyway," he said, eyeing her steadily.

"Not if you call ruining a woman's name not 'hurting' her," she answered bitterly.

"I am sorry for that, Miss Sheila," he said earnestly. "I had an idea that night--and still have it, for that matter--that I was an instrument-- Well, I had an idea, that's all. But I haven't told anybody about what happened--I haven't even hinted it to anybody. And I told the parson to get out of the country, so he wouldn't do any ga.s.sing about it. And I haven't been over to Dry Bottom to have the marriage recorded--and I am not going to go. So that you can have it set aside at any time."

Yes, she could have the marriage annulled, she knew that. But the contemplation of her release from the tie that bound her to him did not lessen the gravity of the offense in her eyes. She told herself that she hated him with a remorseless pa.s.sion which would never cease until he ceased to live. No action of his could repair the damage he had done to her. She told him so, plainly.

"I didn't know you were so blood-thirsty as that," he laughed in quiet mockery. "Maybe it would be a good thing for you if I did die--or get killed. But I'm not allowing that I'm ready to die yet, and certainly am not going to let anybody kill me if I can prevent it. I reckon you're not thinking of doing the killing yourself?"

"If I told my father--" she began, but hesitated when she saw his lips suddenly straighten and harden and his eyes light with a deep contempt.

"So you haven't told your father?" he laughed. "I was sure you had taken him into your confidence by this time. But I reckon it's a mighty good thing that you didn't--for your father. Like as not if you'd tell him he'd get some riled and come right over to see me, yearning for my blood. And then I'd have to shoot him up some. And that would sure be too bad--you loving him as you do."

"I suppose you would shoot him like you shot that poor fellow in Lazette,"

she taunted, bitterly.

"Like I did that poor fellow in Lazette," he said, with broad, ironic emphasis. "You saw me shoot Blanca, of course, for you were there. But you don't know what made me shoot him, and I am not going to tell you--it's none of your business."

"Indeed!" Her voice was burdened with contempt. "I suppose you take a certain pride in your ability to murder people." She placed a venomous accent on the "Murder."

"Lots of people ought to be murdered," he drawled, using the accent she had used.

Her contempt of him grew. "Then I presume you have others in mind--whom you will shoot when the mood strikes you?" she said.

"Perhaps." His smile was mysterious and mocking, and she saw in his eyes the reckless gleam which she had noted that night while in the cabin with him. She shuddered and walked to the pony--his pony.

"If you have quite finished I believe I will be going," she said, holding her chin high and averting her face. "I will have one of the men bring your horse to you."