“Lady,” said the cowpuncher huskily, “this sure means a lot to me.  And the—­other things—­you’ll forget?”

“I never knew you,” said the girl, smiling at him again, “until this moment.”

“Oh, it’s a go!” cried Arizona.  “Now try me out!”

Jig saw his self-respect come back to him, saw his eye grow bright and clear.  Arizona was like a man with a new “good resolution.”  He wanted to test his strength and astonish someone with his change.

“There is one great thing in which I need help,” she said.

“Good!  And what’s that?”

“Riley Sinclair is in jail.”

“H’m,” muttered Arizona.  “He ain’t in on a serious charge.  Let him stay a while.”  Stiffening in the saddle he stared at her.  “Does Sinclair know?”

“What?” asked the girl, but she flushed in spite of herself.

“That you ain’t a man?”

“Yes.”

For a moment he considered her crimson face gloomily.  “You and Sinclair was sort of pals, I guess,” he said at length.

Faintly she replied in the affirmative, and her secret was written as clearly as sunlight on her face.  Yet she kept her eyes raised bravely.

As for Arizona, the newborn hope died in him, and then flickered back to an evil life.  If Sinclair was in his way, why give up?  Why not remove this obstacle as he had removed others in his time.  The hurrying voice of the girl broke in on his somber thoughts.

“He went to Sour Creek to help me as soon as he found out that I was not a man.  He put himself in terrible danger there on my account.”

“Did Cartwright have something to do with you and him?”

“Yes.”

But Arizona made no effort to read her riddle.

She went on:  “Now that he has been taken, I know what has happened.  To keep me out of danger he told—­”

“That you’re a woman?”

“No, he wouldn’t do that, because he knows that is the last thing in the world that I want revealed.  But he’s told them that he killed Quade, and now he’s in danger of his life.”

“Let’s ride on,” said Arizona.  “I got to think a pile.”

She did not speak, while the horses wound down the steep side of the mountain.  Mile after mile rose behind them.  The sun increased in power, flashing on the leaves of the trees and beginning to burn the face with its slanting heat.  Now and then she ventured a side-glance at Arizona, and always she found him in a brown study.  Vaguely she knew that he was fighting the old battle of good and evil in the silence of the morning.  Finally he stopped his horse and turned to her again.

They were in the foothills by this time, and they had drawn out from the trees to a little level space on the top of a rise.  The morning mist was thinning rapidly in the heart of the hollow beneath them.  Far off, they heard the lowing of cows being driven into the pasture land after the morning milking, and they could make out tiny figures in the fields.