Walking their horses down Geerusalem Gulch, they went, riding side by side. Neither spoke. They passed the lonely, dilapidated rock hut where Lennox, wounded, had applied for help on that exciting night of his flight from camp, and crossed the monumented gravel bar that was to be known thereafter as Quintell’s Unlucky Boy. Ahead of them spread the great, gray floor of Soapweed Plains, looking under the sheen of the moon like some placid ghostly sea. From out of the immeasurable distances came the pitiful howl of a wild dog foraging hopelessly for food.
As they reached the point in the gulch where it began to spill its rocky bottom over the bosom of the plains, Dot turned her head and looked at Billy Gee. Her face was pale, her lips drawn.
“Why did you ever do it, Jerome?” she asked in de
