which I hadn't covered very well, having ridden boldly. It happened
that the Mexican woman couldn't read and talked little; still, I
knew they'd find me soon--it couldn't be otherwise--so I made
another run for it, swearing an oath, however, before I left that
I'd come back and have that gambler's heart.

"It was lucky I went, for they uncovered my sign the next day, and
the country where I'd hidden blazed like a field of dry grass. They
were close on my heels, and they closed in from every quarter, but,
pshaw! I knew the woods like an Indian, and the wild things were my
friends again, which would have made it play if I'd been alone, but
a girl child of three was harder to manage. So I cowered and skulked
day after day like a thief or the murderer they thought me, working
always farther into the hidden places, travelling by night with the
little one asleep on my bosom, by day playing with her in some leafy
glen, with my pursuers so close behind that for weeks I never slept;
and my love for the child increased daily till it became almost an
insanity.

"She was the only woman thing I had ever possessed, and it seemed
like my love for the mother came back and settled on her. And she
loved me, too, and trusted me. Every little smile, every clasp of
her tiny, dimpled fingers showed it, and tied her to me with another
knot till the fear of losing her became greater than I could bear,
till it kept the chill of death in my bones and filled my veins with
glacier water. I became an animal, a cowardly, quailing coyote, all
through the love of a child.

"We had close squeezes many times, but I finally won, in spite of
the fact that they tracked us clear to the edge of the desert, for I