Chapter XIII. Beulah Interferes

They felt their way up in the darkness.  The path was rough and at first pitch-black.  After a time they emerged from the aspens into more open travel.  Here were occasional gleams of light, as if the moon stood tip-toe and peered down between the sheer walls of Chicito to the obscure depths below.

Beulah led.  Mountain-born and bred, she was active as a bighorn.  Her slenderness was deceptive.  It concealed the pack of her long rippling muscles, the deep-breasted strength of her torso.  One might have marched a long day's journey without finding a young woman more perfectly modeled for grace and for endurance.

"What are you going to try to do?" Beaudry asked of her timidly.

She turned on him with a burst of feminine ferocity. "Is that any of your business?  I didn't ask you to come with me, did I?  Go down to the horse ranch and