Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/155

 “Thank you,” said Moran. He picked up his blanket roll. “I’ll bunk just outside.”

“If it storms, come inside,” she said. “Circumstances alter cases, and I’m not priggishly conventional, you know. Good night.”

Moran knew that there was no least touch of coquetry in this permission to use her given name. There was some deep-rooted reason why she shrank from hearing the rest of her name. When he knew that reason he would know why she was here.

He had scarcely spread his blankets when a sudden shiver shook him as a cry rang out from the rims above; the lobo cry, the most chilling sound of all the wild. It was tossed from wall to wall of the canyon, its echoes dying slowly away among the peaks as the diminishing ripples caused by a thrown rock die out against the far shore of a quiet pool. Moran heard the girl call softly from the cabin.

“Do you still believe Flash could make a sound like that?”

“I’m sure of it. That was Flash—no other.”

“It’s rather a dreadful sound for so lovable a dog to make,” she said. “But now that I know it’s only Flash I need not shiver when I