“What will take me?”

“Something inside you.  Something unawakened.  ’Something lost beyond the ranges.’  You’ll know, and you’ll obey it.”

“Shall I ever come back, O seeress?”

At the question her eyes grew dreamy and distant.  Her voice when she spoke sank to a low-pitched monotone.

“Yes, you’ll come back.  Sometime....  So shall I ... not for years ... but—­” She jumped to her feet.  “What kind of rubbish am I talking?” she cried with forced merriment.  “Is your tobacco drugged with hasheesh, Ban?”

He shook his head.  “It’s the pull of the desert,” he murmured.  “It’s caught you sooner than most.  You’re more responsive, I suppose; more sens—­Why, Butterfly!  You’re shaking.”

“A Scotchman would say that I was ‘fey.’  Ban, do you think it means that I’m coming back here to die?” She laughed again.  “If I were fated to die here, I expect that I missed my good chance in the smash-up.  Fortunately I’m not superstitious.”

“There might be worse places,” said he slowly.  “It is the place that would call me back if ever I got down and out.”  He pointed through the window to the distant, glowing purity of the mountain peak.  “One could tell one’s troubles to that tranquil old god.”

“Would he listen to mine, I wonder?”

“Try him before you go.  You can leave them all here and I’ll watch over them for you to see that they don’t get loose and bother you.”

“Absolution!  If it were only as easy as that!  This is a haunted place....  Why should I be here at all? Why didn’t I go when I should?  Why a thousand things?”

“Chance.”

“Is there any such thing?  Why can’t I sleep at night yet, as I ought?  Why do I still feel hunted?  What’s happening to me, Ban?  What’s getting ready to happen?”

“Nothing.  That’s nerves.”

“Yes; I’ll try not to think of it.  But at night—­Ban, suppose I should come over in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep, and call outside your window?”

“I’d come down, of course.  But you’d have to be careful about rattlers,” answered the practical Ban.

“Your friend, Camilla, would intercept me, anyway.  I don’t think she sleeps too well, herself.  Do you know what she’s doing out here?”

“She came for her health.”

“That isn’t what I asked you, my dear.  Do you know what she’s doing?”

“No.  She never told me.”

“Shall I tell you?”

“No.”

“It’s interesting.  Aren’t you curious?”

“If she wanted me to know, she’d tell me.”

“Indubitably correct, and quite praiseworthy,” mocked the girl.  “Never mind; you know how to be staunch to your friends.”

“In this country a man who doesn’t is reckoned a yellow dog.”

“He is in any decent country.  So take that with you when you go.”

“I’m not going,” he asserted with an obstinate set to his jaw.