There was indeed something lacking in Joel, but it was not sincerity.

His hurt had rankled deep and his voice trembled with indignation.

"But, Joel, I don't go swimming in spring-holes," protested Lucy, divided between amus.e.m.e.nt and annoyance.

"I meant it, anyhow," said Joel, doggedly.

"Are you absolutely honest? Is that all you said to provoke Van?"

"It's all, Lucy, I swear."

She believed him, and saw the unfortunate circ.u.mstance more than ever her fault. "I'm sorry, Joel. I'm much to blame. I shouldn't have lost my temper and played that trick with your clothes.... If you'd only had sense enough to stay out till after dark! But no use crying over spilt milk. Now, if you'll do your share I'll do mine. I'll tell the boys I was to blame. I'll persuade them to let you alone. I'll go to Muncie--"

"No you won't go cryin' small fer me!" blurted out Joel.

Lucy was surprised to see pride in him. "Joel, I'll not make it appear--"

"You'll not say one word about me to any one," he went on, with the blood beginning to darken his face. And now he faced her. How strange the blaze in his differently colored eyes! "Lucy Bostil, there's been thet done an' said to me which I'll never forgive. I'm no good in Bostil's Ford. Mebbe I never was much. But I could get a job when I wanted it an' credit when I needed it. Now I can't get nothin'. I'm no good! ... I'm no good! An' it's your fault!"

"Oh, Joel, what can I do?" cried Lucy.

"I reckon there's only one way you can square me," he replied, suddenly growing pale. But his eyes were like flint. He certainly looked to be in possession of all his wits.

"How?" queried Lucy, sharply.

"You can marry me. Thet'll show thet gang! An' it'll square me. Then I'll go back to work an' I'll stick. Thet's all, Lucy Bostil."

Manifestly he was laboring under strong suppressed agitation. That moment was the last of real strength and dignity ever shown by Joel Creech.

"But, Joel, I can't marry you--even if I am to blame for your ruin,"

said Lucy, simply.

"Why?"

"Because I don't love you."

"I reckon thet won't make any difference, if you don't love some one else."

Lucy gazed blankly at him. He began to shake, and his eyes grew wild.

She rose from the log.

"Do you love anybody else?" he asked, pa.s.sionately.

"None of your business!" retorted Lucy. Then, at a strange darkening of his face, an aspect unfamiliar to her, she grew suddenly frightened.

"It's Van!" he said, thickly.

"Joel, you're a fool!"

That only infuriated him.

"So they all say. An' they got my old man believin' it, too. Mebbe I am.... But I'm a-goin' to kill Van!"

"No! No! Joel, what are you saying? I don't love Van. I don't care any more for him than for any other rider--or--or you."

"Thet's a lie, Lucy Bostil!"

"How dare you say I lie?" demanded Lucy. "I've a mind to turn my back on you. I'm trying to make up for my blunder and you--you insult me!"

"You talk sweet ... but talk isn't enough. You made me no-good ....

Will you marry me?"

"I will not!" And Lucy, with her blood up, could not keep contempt out of voice and look, and she did not care. That was the first time she had ever shown anything, approaching ridicule for Joel. The effect was remarkable. Like a lash upon a raw wound it made him writhe; but more significant to Lucy was the sudden convulsive working of his features and the wildness of his eyes. Then she turned her back, not from contempt, but to hurry away from him.

He leaped after her and grasped her with rude hands.

"Let me go!" cried Lucy, standing perfectly motionless. The hard clutch of his fingers roused a fierce, hot anger.

Joel did not heed her command. He was forcing her back. He talked incoherently. One glimpse of his face added terror to Lucy's fury.

"Joel, you're out of your head!" she cried, and she began to wrench and writhe out of his grasp. Then ensued a short, sharp struggle. Joel could not hold Lucy, but he tore her blouse into shreds. It seemed to Lucy that he did that savagely. She broke free from him, and he lunged at her again. With all her strength she lashed his face with the heavy leather quirt. That staggered him. He almost fell.

Lucy bounded to Sarchedon. In a rush she was up in the saddle. Joel was running toward her. Blood on his face! Blood on his hands! He was not the Joel Creech she knew.

"Stop!" cried Lucy, fiercely. "I'll run you down!"

The big black plunged at a touch of spur and came down quivering, ready to bolt.

Creech swerved to one side. His face was lividly white except where the b.l.o.o.d.y welts crossed it. His jaw seemed to hang loosely, making speech difficult.

"Jest fer--thet--" he panted, hoa.r.s.ely, "I'll lay fer you--an' I'll strip you---an' I'll tie you on a hoss--an' I'll drive you naked through Bostil's Ford!"

Lucy saw the utter futility of all her good intentions. Something had snapped in Joel Creech's mind. And in hers kindness had given precedence to a fury she did not know was in her. For the second time she touched a spur to Sarchedon. He leaped out, flashed past Creech, and thundered up the road. It was all Lucy could do to break his gait at the first steep rise.

CHAPTER IV

Three wild-horse hunters made camp one night beside a little stream in the Sevier Valley, five hundred miles, as a crow flies, from Bostil's Ford.

These hunters had a poor outfit, excepting, of course, their horses.

They were young men, rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the saddle, bronzed like Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed. Two of them appeared to be tired out, and lagged at the camp-fire duties. When the meager meal was prepared they sat, cross-legged, before a ragged tarpaulin, eating and drinking in silence.

The sky in the west was rosy, slowly darkening. The valley floor billowed away, ridged and cut, growing gray and purple and dark. Walls of stone, pink with the last rays of the setting sun, inclosed the valley, stretching away toward a long, low, black mountain range.

The place was wild, beautiful, open, with something nameless that made the desert different from any other country. It was, perhaps, a loneliness of vast stretches of valley and stone, clear to the eye, even after sunset. That black mountain range, which looked close enough to ride to before dark, was a hundred miles distant.

The shades of night fell swiftly, and it was dark by the time the hunters finished the meal. Then the campfire had burned low. One of the three dragged branches of dead cedars and replenished the fire. Quickly it flared up, with the white flame and crackle characteristic of dry cedar. The night wind had risen, moaning through the gnarled, stunted cedars near by, and it blew the fragrant wood-smoke into the faces of the two hunters, who seemed too tired to move.