A perceptible weakness presently forced him to realize he must look to his wounded foot. This he did without slackening speed. The sight of it and the feeling inside his torn and blood-soaked boot was not reassuring, but he rode on, sparing neither his horse nor his exhaustion. It was only when spells of dizziness, recurring with frequency, warned him he could not keep the saddle much longer, that he attempted to dismount to stanch the drip of blood from his stirrup.

Before he slackened speed he tried to look behind to reconnoitre. With relief he perceived his sight to be a trifle better, and in scanning the horizon he could discover no pursuers. Choosing a secluded spot, he dismounted, cut open his boot, and found that a bullet, passing downward, had torn an artery under the arch of the foot. Making a rude tourniquet, he succeeded in checking pretty well the spurting flow that was sapping his strength. After he had adjusted the bandage he stood up and looked at it. Then he drew his revolver again and broke it. He found five empty shells in the chambers and threw them away. The last cartridge had not been fired. He could not even figure out how he had happened to have six cartridges in the cylinder, for he rarely loaded more than five. Indeed, it was his fixed habit—to avoid accidents—never to carry a cartridge under the hammer of his gun—yet now there had been one. Without trying to explain the circumstance, he took fresh stock of his chances and began to wonder whether he might yet escape and live.

He climbed again into the saddle, and, riding to a ridge, looked carefully over the desert. It was with an effort that he could steady himself, and the extent of his weakness surprised him. What further perplexed him as he crossed a long divide, got another good view and saw no pursuit threatening in any direction, was to identify the country he was in. The only landmark anywhere in sight that he could recognize was Music Mountain. This now lay to the northwest, and he knew he must be a long way from any country he was familiar with. But there was no gainsaying, even in his confused condition, Music Mountain. After looking at it a long time he headed with some hesitation cautiously toward it, with intent to intercept the first trail to the northeast. This would take him toward Sleepy Cat.

As his eyes continued to sweep the horizon he noted that the sun was down and it was growing dark. This brought a relief and a difficulty. It left him less in fear of molestation, but made it harder for him to reach a known trail. The horse, in spite of the long, hard ride seemed fresh yet, and de Spain, with one cartridge would still have laughed at his difficulties had he not realized, with uneasiness, that his head was becoming very light. Recurring intervals of giddiness foreshadowed a new danger in his uncharted ride. It became again a problem for him to keep his seat in the saddle. He was aware at intervals that he was steadying himself like a drunken man. His efforts to guide the horse only bewildered the beast, and the two travelled on maudlin curves and doubled back on their track until de Spain decided that his sole chance of reaching any known trail was to let go and give the horse his head.

A starless night fell across the desert. With danger of pursuit practically ended, and only a chance encounter to fear, de Spain tried to help himself by walking the horse and resting his bleeding foot in front of the pommel, letting the pony pick his way as he chose. A period of unconsciousness, a blank in de Spain's mind, soon followed the slowing up. He came to himself as he was lurching out of the saddle. Pulling himself together, he put the wet foot in the stirrup again and clung to the pommel with his hands. How long he rode in this way, or how far, he never knew. He was roused to consciousness by the unaccustomed sound of running water underneath his horse's feet.

It was pitch dark everywhere. The horse after the hard experience of the evening was drinking a welcome draft. De Spain had no conception of where he could be, but the stream told him he had somehow reached the range, though Music Mountain itself had been swallowed up in the night. A sudden and uncontrollable thirst seized the wounded man. He could hear the water falling over the stones and climbed slowly and painfully out of the saddle to the ground. With the lines in his left hand he crawled toward the water and, lying flat on the ground beside the horse, put his head down to drink. The horse, meantime, satisfied, lifted his head with a gulp, rinsed his mouth, and pulled backward. The lines slipped from de Spain's hand. Alarmed, the weakened man scrambled after them. The horse, startled, shied, and before his rider could get to his feet scampered off in a trot. While de Spain listened in consternation, the escaped horse, falling into an easy stride, galloped away into the night.

Stunned by this new misfortune, and listening gloomily to the retreating hoof-beats, de Spain pondered the situation in which the disaster left him. It was the worst possible blow that could have fallen, but fallen it had, and he turned with such philosophy as he could to complete the drink of water that had probably cost him his life. At least, cold water never tasted sweeter, never was so grateful to his parched tongue, and since the price of the draft might be measured by life itself, he drank extravagantly, stopping at times to rest and, after breathing deeply, to drink again.

When he had slaked a seemingly unquenchable craving, he dashed the running water, first with one hand and then the other, over his face. He tried feebly to wash away some of the alkali that had crusted over the wound in the front of his head and was stinging and burning in it. There was now nothing to do but to secrete himself until daylight and wait till help should reach him—it was manifestly impossible for him to seek it.

Meantime, the little stream beside him offered first aid. He tried it with his foot and found it slight and shallow, albeit with a rocky bed that made wading in his condition difficult. But he felt so much better he was able to attempt this, and, keeping near to one side of the current, he began to follow it slowly up-stream. The ascent was at times precipitous, which pleased him, though it depleted his new strength. It was easy in this way to hide his trail, and the higher and faster the stream took him into the mountains the safer he would be from any Calabasas pursuers. When he had regained a little strength and oriented himself, he could quickly get down into the hills.

Animated by these thoughts, he held his way up-stream, hoping at every step to reach the gorge from which the flow issued. He would have known this by the sound of the falling water, but, weakening soon, he found he must abandon hope of getting up to it. However, by resting and scrambling up the rocks, he kept on longer than he would have believed possible. Encountering at length, as he struggled upward, a ledge and a clump of bushes, he crawled weakly on hands and knees into it, too spent to struggle farther, stretched himself on the flattened brambles and sank into a heavy sleep.

* * * * *

He woke in broad daylight. Consciousness returned slowly and he raised himself with pain from his rough couch. His wounds were stiff, and he lay for a long time on his back looking up at the sky. At length he dragged himself to an open space near where he had slept and looked about. He appeared to be near the foot of a mountain quite strange to him, and in rather an exposed place. The shelter that had served him for the night proved worthless in daylight and, following his strongly developed instinct of self-preservation, de Spain started once more up the rocky path of the stream. He clambered a hundred feet above where he had slept before he found a hiding-place. It was at the foot of a tiny waterfall where the brook, striking a ledge of granite, had patiently hollowed out a shallow pool. Beside this a great mass of frost-bitten rock had fallen, and one of the bowlders lay tilted in such a way as to roof in a sort of cave, the entrance to which was not higher than a man's knee. De Spain crawled into this refuge. He conceived that from this high, open ledge he could show a small signal-fire at night, and if it were answered by his enemies he had a semblance of a retreat under the fallen rock, a hunting-knife, and one lone cartridge to protect himself with. A mountain-lion might have to be reckoned with; and if a pursuer should follow him under the rock his only chance would lie in getting hold, after a fight, of the man's loaded revolver or ammunition-belt. Such a hope involved a great deal of confidence, but de Spain was an optimist—most railroad men are.

The outlook was, in truth, not altogether cheerful—some would have called it, for a wounded man, desperate—but it had some slight consolations and de Spain was not given to long-range forebodings. The rising sun shone in a glory of clearness, and the cool night air rolling up the mountain was grateful and refreshing. Lying flat on the rock, he stretched his head forward and drank deeply of the ice-cold pool beside which he lay. The violent exertion of reaching the height had started the ruptured artery anew, and his first work was crudely to cleanse the wound and attempt to rebandage it. He was hungry, but for this there was only one alleviation—sleep—and, carefully effacing all traces of his presence on the ledge, he crawled into his rock retreat and fell again into a heavy slumber.

It was this repose that proved his undoing. He woke to consciousness so weak he could scarcely lift his head. It was still day. A consuming thirst assailed him, but he lacked the strength to crawl out of his cave, and, looking toward his bandaged foot, he was shocked at the sight of how it had bled while he slept. When he could rally from his discouragement he rewound the bandages and told himself what a fool he had been to drag his foot up the rocks before the wound had had any chance to heal. He resolved, despite his thirst, to lie still all day and give the artery absolute quiet. It required only a little stoicism; the stake was life.

Toward afternoon his restlessness increased, but he clung to his resolve to lie still. By evening he was burning with thirst, and when morning came after a feverish night, with his head on fire and his mouth crusted dry, he concluded rightly that one or both of his wounds had become infected.

De Spain understood what it meant. He looked regretfully at the injured foot. Swollen out of shape and angry-looking, the mere appearance would have told him, had the confirmation been needed, that his situation was becoming critical. This did not so much disconcert him as it surprised him and spurred him mentally to the necessity of new measures. He lay a long time thinking. Against the infection he could do little. But the one aid at his hand was abundance of cold water to drink and bathe his wound in, and to this he resolved now to drag himself. To crawl across the space that separated him from the pool required all the strength he could summon. The sun was already well up and its rays shot like spectrum arrows through the spray of the dainty cataract, which spurted in a jewelled sheet over a rocky ledge twenty feet above and poured noisily down from the broad pool along jagged bowlders below.

Crawling, choking with thirst, slowly forward, he reached the water, and, reclining on his side and one elbow, he was about to lean down to drink when he suddenly felt, with some kind of an instinctive shock, that he was no longer alone on the ledge. He had no interest in analyzing the conviction; he did not even question it. Not a sound had reached his ears. Only a moment before he had looked carefully all around. But the field of his vision was closely circumscribed by the walls about him. It was easy for an invader to come on his retreat unawares—at all events, somebody, he was almost sure, stood behind him. The silence meant an enemy. The first thing to expect was a bullet. It would probably be aimed at the back of his head. At least he knew this was the spot to aim for to kill a man instantly and painlessly—yet he shrank from that anticipated crash.

And it was this thought that cost the defenseless man at the moment the most pain—that feeling, in advance, of the blow of the bullet that should snuff out his life. Defense was out of the question; he was as helpless as a baby. An impulse in his fingers to clutch his revolver he restrained at once—it could only hasten his death. He wondered, as the seconds passed, why his executioner hesitated to shoot, but he could not rid himself of the mental horror of being shot in the base of the brain. Anywhere else he would have almost welcomed a bullet; anywhere else it might have given him one chance for life through rolling over after he was struck in an attempt to kill his assailant.

His thoughts, working in flashes of lightning, suggested every possible trick of escape, and as rapidly rejected each. There was nothing for it but to play the part, to take the blow with no more than a quiver when it came. He had once seen a man shot in just that way. Braced to such a determination, de Spain bent slowly downward, and, with eyes staring into the water for a reflection that might afford a glimpse of his enemy, he began to drink. A splash above his head frightened him almost to death. It was a water ousel dashing into the foaming cataract and out again, and the spray falling from the sudden bath wrecked the mirror of the pool. De Spain nearly choked. Each mouthful of water was a struggle. The sense of impending death had robbed even the life-giving drafts of their tonic; each instant carried its acute sensation of being the last. At length, his nerves weakened by hunger and exposure, revolted under the strain. Suppose it should be, after all, a fantasy of his fever that pictured so vividly an enemy behind. With an effort that cost more mental torture than he ever had known, he drew back on his elbow from the pool, steadied himself, turned his head to face his executioner, and confronted Nan Morgan.



CHAPTER XIII

PARLEY

She stood beside the rock from which the ledge was reached from below, and as if she had just stepped up into sight. Her rifle was so held in both hands that it could be fired from her hip, and at such close quarters with deadly accuracy. As she stood with startled eyes fixed on his haggard face, her slender neck and poised head were very familiar to de Spain.

And her expression, while it reflected her horrified alarm, did not conceal her anger and aversion at the sight of him. Unaware of the forbidding spectacle he presented, de Spain, swept by a brainstorm at the appearance of this Morgan—the only one of all the Morgans he had not fancied covering him and waiting to deliver his death-warrant—felt a fury sweep over him at the thought of being shot by a woman. The wild idea that she meant to kill him, which in a rational moment would never have entered his mind, now in his delirium completely obsessed him. Working, as it were, mechanically, even the instinct of self-defense asserted itself against her. But enough of reason remained in his disordered senses to tell him that self-defense was out of the question. Whatever she meant to do, he could no more fire at this girl, even had he a chance—and he realized he was at her mercy—than he could at his sister; and he lay with his eyes bent on hers, trying to read her purpose.

She stood guarded, but motionless with surprise. De Spain turned himself slowly and, sitting up, waited for her to speak. There was little to hope for, he thought, in her expression. And all of his duplicity seemed to desert him before her cold resolution. The tricks he would have tried, at bay before a man, he felt no inclination to attempt. He read in her set face only abhorrence and condemnation, and felt in no way moved to argue her verdict. "I suppose," he said, at length, not trying to disguise his bitter resentment of her presence, "you've come to finish me."

His shirt stained and tattered for bandages, his hair matted in blood on his forehead, his eyes inflamed and sunken, his lips crusted and swollen, the birthmark fastened vividly on his cheek made him a desperate sight. Regarding him steadily, Nan, as bewildered as if she had suddenly come on a great wounded beast of prey still dangerous, made no response to his words. The two stared at each other defiantly and for another moment in silence. "If you are going to kill me," he continued, looking into her eyes without any thought of appeal, "do it quick."

Something in his long, unyielding gaze impelled her to break the spell of it. "What are you doing here?" she demanded with anger, curbing her voice to control her excitement as best she could.

De Spain, still looking at her, answered only after a pause. "Hiding," he said harshly.

"Hiding to kill other men!" Nan's accusation as she clutched her rifle was almost explosive.

He regarded her coolly, and with the interval he had had for thinking, his wits were clearing. "Do I look like a man hunting for a fight? Or," he added, since she made no answer, "like a man hunting for a quiet spot to die in? How," he went on slowly, delirium giving place to indignation, "can you say I'm hiding here to kill other men? That's what your people tell you, is it?"

"I know you are a murderer."

In spite of his weakness he flushed. "No," he exclaimed sharply, "I'm not a murderer. If you think it"—he pointed contemptuously to her side—"you have your rifle—use it!"

"My rifle is to defend myself with. I am not a public executioner," she answered scornfully.

"You need no rifle to defend yourself from me—though I am a murderer. And if you're not a public executioner, leave me—I'm dying fast enough."

"You came here to hide to kill somebody!" she exclaimed, as if the thought were a sudden explanation.

"What do you mean by 'here'? I might better ask why you came here," he retorted. "I don't know where I am. Do I look as if I came here by choice?" He paused. "Listen," he said, quite master of himself, "I'll tell you why I came. I shall never get away alive, anyway—you can have the truth if you want it. I got off my horse in the night to get a drink. He bolted. I couldn't walk. I climbed up here to hide till my wounds heal. Now, I've told you the truth. Where am I?"

The grip of her hands on the rifle might have relaxed somewhat, but she saw his deadly revolver in its accustomed place and did not mean to surrender her command of him. Nor would she tell him where he was. She parried his questions. He could get no information of any sort out of her. Yet he saw that something more than his mere presence detained and perplexed her. Her prompt condemnation of him rankled in his mind, and the strain of facing her suspicion wore on him. "I won't ask you anything more," he said at length. "You do right to give me no information. It might help me save my life. I can't talk any longer. You know you think I've no right to live—that's what you think, isn't it? Why don't you shoot?" She only stared at him. "Why don't you answer?" he demanded recklessly.

Nan summoned her resolution. "I know you tried to kill my cousin," she said hotly, after he had taunted her once more. "And I don't know you won't try it again as soon as you are able. And I am going to think what to do before I tell you anything or do anything."

"You know I tried to kill your cousin! You know nothing of the kind. Your cousin tried to kill me. He's a bully and a coward, a man that doesn't know what fair fighting means. Tell him that for me."

"You are safe in abusing him when he's not here."

"Send him to me! This is no place for a woman that calls me what you call me—send your cousin and all his friends!" His voice shook with anger. "Tell him I'm wounded; tell him I've had nothing to eat since I fought him before. And if he's still afraid"—de Spain drew and broke his revolver almost like a flash. In that incredibly quick instant she realized he might have threatened her life before she could move a muscle—"tell your fine cousin I've got one cartridge left—just one!" So saying, he held in one hand the loaded cartridge and in the other the empty revolver.

"You think little of bloodshed, I know," she returned unpleasantly.

"I think a whole lot," he drawled in painful retort, "of fair fighting."

"And I'm a woman—you do well to taunt me with that."

"I did not taunt you with it. You are hatefully unjust," he protested sullenly.

"You've asked me to go—I'm going. How much of what you tell me is true, I don't know. But I can believe my own eyes, and I believe you are not in condition to do much injury, even if you came here with that intention. You will certainly lose your life if you move from your hiding-place."

She started away. He leaned toward her. "Stop," he said peremptorily, raising himself with a wrenching effort. Something in the stern eye held her. His extended hand pointed toward her as arbitrarily as if, instead of lying helpless at her feet, he could command her to his bidding. "I want to ask you a question. I've told you the truth. I have just one cartridge. If you are going to send your cousin and his men here, it's only fair I should know it now—isn't it?"

Her face was hard in spite of the weakness he struggled to conceal. It annoyed her to think he had surmised she was revolving in her mind what to do. He was demanding an answer she had not yet given to herself.

"My cousin is wounded," she said, pausing. And then with indecision: "If you stay here quietly you are not likely to be molested."

She stepped down from the ledge as noiselessly as she had come. Shaken by the discovery she had so unexpectedly made, Nan retreated almost precipitately from the spot. And the question of what to do worried her as much as it worried de Spain. The whole range had been shaken by the Calabasas fight. Even in a country where appeal to arms was common, where men were ready to snuff out a life for a word, or kill for a mess of pottage—to settle for the least grave offense a dispute with a shot—the story of the surprising, unequal, and fatal encounter of the Calabasas men with de Spain, and of his complete disappearance after withstanding almost unheard-of odds, was more than a three days' wonder; nothing else was talked of for weeks. Even the men in Morgan's Gap, supposed to be past masters of the game played in the closed room at Calabasas, had been stunned by the issue of the few minutes with Jeffries's new man.

Nan, who had heard but one side of the story, pictured the aggressor from the tale of the two who lived to tell of the horribly sharp action with him. Morning, noon, and night she had heard nothing but the fight at Calabasas discussed by the men that rode in and out of the Gap—and in connection with it, de Spain's unexplained flight and disappearance. Those that knew the real story of the conspiracy to kill him did not talk much, after the disastrous outcome, of that part of the affair. But Nan's common sense whispered to her, whatever might be said about de Spain's starting the fight, that one man locked in a room with four enemies, all dangerous in an affray, was not likely to begin a fight unless forced to—none, at least, but a madman would do so. She had heard stories, too, of de Spain's drinking and quarrelling, but none that told them had ever seen him under the influence of drink or had had a quarrel with him except Gale and Sassoon—and these two were extremely quarrelsome.

Unhappy and irresolute, Nan, when she got home, was glad of an excuse to ride to Calabasas for a packet of dressings coming by stage from Sleepy Cat for Gale, who lay wounded at Satt Morgan's; and, eating a hasty luncheon, she ordered her horse and set out.

Should she tell her Uncle Duke of finding de Spain? Whenever she decided that she must, something in the recollection of de Spain's condition unsettled her resolution. Tales enough of his bloodthirstiness, his merciless efficiency, his ever-ready craft and consummate duplicity were familiar to her—most of them made so within the last three days—for no one in her circle any longer professed to underrate the demonstrated resourcefulness of the man.

Yet only a few of these stories appealed to Nan's innate convictions of truth and justice. She lived among men who were, for the most part, not truthful or dependable even in small things—how could they be relied on to tell the truth about de Spain's motives and conduct? As to his deadly skill with arms, no stories were needed to confirm this, even though she herself had once overcome him in a contest. The evidence of this mastery had now a fatal pre-eminence among the tragedies of the Spanish Sinks. Where he lay he could, if he meditated revenge on her people, murder any of them, almost at will. To spare his life imperilled to this extent theirs—but surely he lay not far from death by exhaustion. Weighed against all she had ever listened to concerning his deceit was the evidence of her own sight. She had seen men desperately ill, and men desperately stricken. This man was either both or she could never again believe her senses. And if he was not helped soon he would die.

But who was to help him? Certainly none of his friends could know where he was hidden or of his plight—no help could come from them unless she told them. If she told them they would try to reach him. That would mean an appalling—an unthinkable—fight. If she told her uncle, could she keep him from killing de Spain? She believed not. He might promise to let him go. But she knew her uncle's ferocious resentment, and how easy it would be for him to give her fine words and, in spite of them, for de Spain to be found dead some morning where he lay—there were plenty of men available for jobs such as that.

All came back to one terrifying alternative: Should she help this wretched man herself? And if he lived, would he repay her by shooting some one of her own kin?

The long ride to Calabasas went fast as the debate swept on, and the vivid shock of her strange experience recurred to her imagination.

She drew up before the big barn. Jim McAlpin was coming out to go to supper. Nan asked for her package and wanted to start directly back again. McAlpin refused absolutely to hear of it. He looked at her horse and professed to be shocked. He told her she had ridden hard, urged her to dismount, and sent her pony in to be rubbed, assuring Nan heartily there was not a man, outside the hostlers, within ten miles. While her horse was cared for, McAlpin asked, in his harmless Scotch way, about Gale.

Concerning Gale, Nan was non-committal. But she listened with interest, more or less veiled, to whatever running comment McAlpin had to offer concerning the Calabasas fight. "And I was sorry to see Gale mixed up in it," he concluded, in his effort to draw Nan out, "sorry. And sorrier to think of Henry de Spain getting killed that way. Why, I knowed Henry de Spain when he was a baby in arms." He put out his hand cannily. "I worked for his father before he was born." His listener remained obdurate. There was nothing for it except further probing, to which, however, Jim felt abundantly equal. "Some say," he suggested, looking significantly toward the door of the barn, and significantly away again, "that Henry went down there to pick a fight with the boys. But," he asserted cryptically, "I happen to know that wasn't so."

"Then what did he go down there for?" demanded Nan indignantly, but not warily.

McAlpin, the situation now in hand, took his time to it. He leaned forward in a manner calculated to invite confidence without giving offense. "Miss Nan," said he simply, "I worked for your Uncle Duke for five years—you know that." Nan had, at least, heard it fifty times. "I think a good deal of him—I think a good deal of you, so does the missus, so does little Loretta—she's always asking about you, the child is—and I hear and see a good deal here that other people don't get next to—they can't. Now Henry de Spain was here, with me, sitting right there where you are sitting, Miss Nan, in that chair," declared McAlpin with an unanswerable finger, "not fifteen minutes before that fight began, he was there. I told you he never went down there to fight. Do you want the proof? I'll tell you—I wouldn't want anybody else to know—will you keep it?"

Nan seemed indifferent. "Girls are not supposed to keep secrets," she said obstinately.

Her narrator was not to be balked. He pointed to the coat-rack on the wall in front of them both. "There is Henry de Spain's coat. He hung it there just before he went down to the inn. Under it, if you look, you'll find his belt of cartridges. Don't take my word—look for yourself."

Giving this information time to sink in, McAlpin continued. Nan's eyes had turned, despite her indifference, to the coat; but she was thinking more intently about the belt which McAlpin asserted hung under it. "You want to know what he did go down to the hotel for that afternoon? I happen to know that, too," averred McAlpin, sitting down, but respectfully, on the edge of the chair. "First I want to say this: I worked for your Uncle Duke five years."

He paused to give Nan a chance to dispute the statement if she so desired. Then taking her despairing silence as an indorsement of his position in giving her a confidence, he went on: "Henry de Spain is dead," he said quietly. She eyed him without so much as winking. "I wouldn't tell it if he wasn't. Some of the boys don't believe he is. I'm not a pessimist—not a bit—but I'm telling you it's a physical impossibility for a man to take the fire of four revolvers in the hands of four men like those four men, at arm's length, and live. Henry de Spain is the cleverest man with a gun that ever rode the Spanish Sinks, but limits is limits; the boy's dead. And he was always talking about you. It's God's truth, and since he's dead it harms no one to tell it to you, though I'd never breathe it to another. He was fairly gone on you. Now that's the fair truth: the man was gone on you. I knowed it, where others didn't know it. I was the only one he could always ask about whether you'd been here, and when; and when you might be expected coming again—and all such things like that.

"You don't have to knock me down, Miss Nan, to put me wise about a man's being keen on a girl. I'm a married man," declared McAlpin with modest pride. "He thought all the time he was fooling me, and keeping covered. Why, I laughed to myself at his tricks to get information without letting on! Now, that afternoon he came in here kind of moody. It was an anniversary for him, and a hard one—the day his father was shot from ambush—a good many years ago, but nary one of us had forgot it. Then he happened to see your pony—this same pony you're riding to-day—a-standing back there in the box-stall. He asked me whose it was; and he asked me about you, and, by jinx! the way he perked up when I told him you were coming in on the stage that afternoon! When he heard you'd been sick, he was for going down to the hotel to get a cup of coffee—for you!" McAlpin, like any good story-teller, was already on his feet again. "He did it," he exclaimed, "and you know what he got when he stepped into the barroom." He took hold of de Spain's coat and held it aside to enter his exhibit. "There," he concluded, "is his cartridge-belt, hanging there yet. The boy is dead—why shouldn't I tell you?"

Nan rode home much more excited, more bewildered than when she had ridden over. What should she do? It was already pretty clear to her that de Spain had not ridden unarmed to where she found him to ambush any of the Morgans. He was not dead; but he was not far from it if McAlpin was right and if she could credit her own senses in looking at him. What ought she to do?

Other things McAlpin had said crowded her thoughts. Strangest shock of all that this man of all other men should profess to care for her. She had shown anger when McAlpin dared speak of it; at least, she thought she had. And she still did not know how, sufficiently, to resent the thought of such audacity on de Spain's part; but recalling all she could of his words and actions, she was forced to confess to herself that McAlpin's assertions were confirmed in them—and that what McAlpin had said interpreted de Spain's unvarying attitude toward her. This was, to say the least, a further awkward complication for her feelings. She already had enough to confuse them.



CHAPTER XIV

NAN DRIFTS

Without going in to speak to Gale, whom Bull Page, his nurse, reported very cross but not hurt much, Nan left her packet for him and rode home. Her uncle Duke was in town. She had the house to herself, with only Bonita, the old Mexican serving-woman, and Nan ate her late supper alone.

The longer she pondered on de Spain and his dilemma—and her own—the more she worried. When she went to bed, up-stairs in her little gable room, she thought sleep—never hard for her to woo—would relieve her of her anxiety for at least the night. But she waited in vain for sleep. She was continually asking herself whether de Spain was really very badly hurt, or whether he might be only tricking her into thinking he was. Assailed by conflicting doubts, she tossed on her pillow till a resolve seized her to go up again to his hiding-place and see what she could see or hear—possibly, if one were on foot, she could uncover a plot.

She dressed resolutely, buckled a holster to her side, and slipping a revolver—a new one that Gale had given her—into it for protection, she walked softly down-stairs and out of doors.

The night air was clear with a three-quarter moon well up in the sky. She took her way rapidly along the trail to the mountain, keeping as much as possible within the great shadows cast by the towering peaks. Not a sound met her acute listening as she pressed on—not a living thing seemed to move anywhere in the whole great Gap, except this slender-footed, keen-eyed girl, whose heart beat with apprehension of wiles, stratagems, and ambush concerning the venture she was making.

Breathing stealthily and keyed to a tense feeling of uncertainty and suspicion, Nan at length found herself below the ledge where de Spain was in hiding. She stopped and, with the craft of an Indian, stood perfectly still for a very long time before she began to climb up to where the enemy lay. Hearing no sound, she took courage and made the ascent. She reached without adventure the corner of the ledge where she had first seen him, and there, lying flat, listened again.

Hearing only the music of the little cascade, she swept the ledge as well as she could with her eyes, but it was now so far in shadow as to lie in impenetrable darkness. Hardly daring to breathe, she crept and felt her way over it with her hands, discovering nothing until she had almost reached de Spain's retreat at the farther side. Then her heart stopped in an agony of fear—underneath the overhanging wall she heard voices.

To attempt to escape was as dangerous as to lie still. Had she dared, she would have retreated at once the way she came. Since she dared not, she was compelled to hear what was said, and, indeed, was eager to hear. De Spain had confederates, then, and had tricked her, after all. Whatever his plot, she was resolved to know it, and instead of retreating she took her revolver in hand and drew herself nearer. When she had gained her new position the mutterings, which had been indistinct, became audible. It was not two voices she had heard, but one—de Spain, she judged, was talking in his sleep.

But a moment later this explanation failed to satisfy her. The mutterings were too constant and too disconnected to be mistaken for sleep-talking—it dawned on Nan that this must be delirium. She could hear de Spain throwing himself from side to side, and the near and far sounds, as if of two voices, were explained. It was possible now for her to tell herself she was mistress of the situation. She crept nearer.

He was babbling in the chill darkness about ammunition, urging men to make haste, warning them of some one coming. He turned on the rock floor ceaselessly, sometimes toward her, sometimes from her, muttering of horses, water, passengers, wheels, wrecks. He made broken appeals to be chopped out, directed men where to use their axes. Nan listened to his ravings, overcome by the revelation of his condition. Once her uncle had lain sick of a fever and had been delirious; but that, her sole experience, was nothing to this. Once de Spain threw out a groping hand and, before she could escape, caught her skirt. Nan tried to pull away. His grip did not loosen. She took his hand in hers and, while he muttered meaningless words, forced his fingers open and drew away. His hand was dry and burning hot.

She told herself he must die if he remained longer unaided, and there were unpleasant possibilities, if he died where he lay. Such a death, so close to her own home might, if it were ever known, throw suspicion on her uncle and arouse the deeper resentment of the wounded man's friends. If the least of pity played a part in suggesting that her safest course was to help de Spain, Nan kept its promptings as much as she could in the penumbra of her thoughts. She did not want to pity or to help him, she convinced herself; but she did not want his death laid to a Morgan plot—for none of his friends would ever believe de Spain had found his way alive and alone to where he lay.

All of this Nan was casting up in her mind as she walked home. She had already decided, but without realizing it, what to do, and was willing to assume that her mind was still open.

Toward daylight of the morning, de Spain dreamed he was not alone—that a figure moved silently in the faintness of the dawn—a figure he struggled to believe a reality, but one that tricked his wandering senses and left him, at the coming of another day, weaker, with failing courage, and alone.

But when he opened his eyes later, and with a clearer head, he found food and drink near. Unable to believe his sight, he fancied his wavering senses deceiving him, until he put out his hand and felt actually the substance of what he saw. He took up a bottle of milk incredulously, and sipped at it with the caution of a man not unused to periods of starvation. He broke eggs and swallowed them, at intervals, hungrily from the shell; and meat he cached, animal-like, in near-by crannies and, manlike, in his pockets.

He was determined, if she should come again, to intercept his visitor. For forty-eight hours he tried cat-naps with an occasional sandwich to keep up his strength. Nan returned unseen, and disappeared despite his watchfulness. A new supply of food proved she had been near, but that it would be hard to time her coming.

When she did come, the third time, an innocent snare discovered her presence. It was just before day, and de Spain had so scattered small obstacles—handfuls of gravel and little chips of rock—that should she cross the ledge in the dark she could hardly escape rousing him.

The device betrayed her. "I'm awake," announced de Spain at once from his retreat. When she stopped at the words he could not see her; she had flattened herself, standing, against a wall of the ledge. He waited patiently. "You give me no chance to thank you," he went on after a pause. Nan, drawing nearer, put down a small parcel. "I don't need any thanks," she replied with calculated coolness. "I am hoping when you are well enough you will go away, quietly, in the night. That will be the only way you can thank me."

"I shall be as glad to go as you can be to have me," rejoined de Spain. "But that won't be thanking you as I am going to. If you think you can save my life and refuse my thanks as I mean to express them—you are mistaken. I will be perfectly honest. Lying out here isn't just what I'd choose for comfort. But if by doing it I could see you once in two or three days——"

"You won't see me again."

"No news could be worse. And if I can't, I don't know how I'm going to get out at all. I've no horse—you know that. I can't stand on my foot yet; if you had a light you might see for yourself. I think I showed you my gun. If you could tell me where I am——"

He halted on the implied question. Nan took ample time to reply.

"Do you mean to tell me you don't know where you are?" she asked, and there was a touch of vexed incredulity in her tone.

De Spain seemed unmoved by her scepticism. "I can't tell you anything else," he said simply. "You couldn't have any idea I crawled up here for the fun of it."

"I've been trying to think," she returned, and he perceived in the hardness of her voice how at bay she felt in giving him the least bit of information, "whether I ought to tell you anything at all——"

"I couldn't very decently take any unfair advantage after what you've done, could I?"

"Then—you are in Morgan's Gap," she said swiftly, as if she wanted it off her mind.

There was no movement of surprise, neither was there any answer. "I supposed, when I found you here, you knew that," she added less resolutely; the darkness and silence were plainly a strain.

"I know you are telling the truth," he responded at length. "But I can hardly believe it. That's the reason, of course, you did find me. I rode a good many miles that night without knowing where I was or what I was doing. I certainly never figured on winding up here. How could I get in here without being stopped?"

"Everybody inside the Gap was outside hunting for you, I suppose."

"There isn't much use asking where I am, in the Gap. I never was inside but once. I shouldn't know if you did tell me."

"You are at the foot of Music Mountain, about a mile from where I live."

"You must have thought I meant to raid your house. I didn't. I was hit. I got mixed up in trying to get away. You want me out of here?"

"Very much."

"No more than I want to get out. Perhaps by to-morrow I could walk a few miles. I should have to assassinate somebody to get some ammunition."

"It wouldn't be hard for you to do that, I presume."

Her words and her tone revealed the intensity of her dislike and the depth of her distrust.

He was silent for a moment. Then he said, without resentment: "You are ashamed already of saying that, aren't you?"

"No, I am not," she answered defiantly.

"Yes, you are. You know it isn't true. If you believed it you never would have brought food here to save my life."

"I brought it to save some of my own people from possible death at your hands—to prevent another fight—to see if you hadn't manhood enough after being helped, to go away, when you were able to move, peaceably. One cartridge might mean one life, dear to me."

"I know whose life you mean."

"You know nothing about what I mean."

"I know better than you know yourself. If I believed you, I shouldn't respect you. Fear and mercy are two different things. If I thought you were only afraid of me, I shouldn't think much of your aid. Listen—I never took the life of any man except to defend my own——"

"No murderer that ever took anybody's life in this country ever said anything but that."

"Don't class me with murderers."

"You are known from one end of the country to the other as a gunman."

He answered impassively: "Did these men who call me a gunman ever tell you why I'm one?" She seemed in too hostile a mood to answer. "I guess not," he went on. "Let me tell you now. The next time you hear me called a gunman you can tell them."

"I won't listen," she exclaimed, restive.

"Yes, you will listen," he said quietly; "you shall hear every word. My father brought sheep into the Peace River country. The cattlemen picked on him to make an example of. He went out, unarmed, one night to take care of the horses. My mother heard two shots. He didn't come back. She went to look for him. He was lying under the corral gate with a hole smashed through his jaw by a rifle-bullet that tore his head half off." De Spain did not raise his voice nor did he hasten his words. "I was born one night six months after that," he continued. "My mother died that night. When a neighbor's wife took me from her arm and wrapped me in a blanket, she saw I carried the face of my father as my mother had seen it the night he was murdered. That," he said, "is what made me a 'gunman.' Not whiskey—not women—not cards—just what you've heard. And I'll tell you something else you may tell the men that call me a gunman. The man that shot down my father at his corral gate I haven't found yet. I expect to find him. For ten years I've been getting ready to find him. He is here—in these mountains. I don't even know his name. But if I live, I'll find him. And when I do, I'll tear open his head with a soft bullet in the way he tore my father's open. After I get through with that man"—he hesitated—"they may call me whatever they like."

The faint ghostliness of the coming day, writing its warning in the eastern sky, the bitter chill of the dying night, the slow, hard, impassive utterance, the darkness in which she stood listening to an enemy she could not see, the loneliness and danger of her situation combined to impress on the unwilling listener the picture of the murder, the tragic birth, and the mother's death. "You want me out of the Gap," de Spain concluded, his voice unchanged. "I want to get out. Come back, once more, in the daytime. I will see what I can do with my foot by that time." He paused. "Will you come?"

She hesitated. "It would be too dangerous for me to come up here in the daytime. Trouble would follow."

"Come at dusk. You know I am no murderer."

"I don't know it," she persisted stubbornly. It was her final protest.

"Count, some day, on knowing it."



CHAPTER XV

CROSSING A DEEP RIVER

A grizzly bear hidden among the haystacks back of the corral would have given Nan much less anxiety than de Spain secreted in the heart of the Morgan stronghold. But as she hurried home, fearful of encountering an early rider who should ask questions, it seemed as if she might, indeed, find some way of getting rid of the troublesome foe without having it on her conscience that she had starved a wounded man to death, or that he had shot some one of her people in getting away.

Her troubled speculations were reduced now almost to wondering when de Spain would leave, and, disinclined though she felt to further parley, she believed he would go the sooner if she were to consent to see him again. Everything he had said to her seemed to unsettle her mind and to imperil impressions concerning him that she felt it dangerous, or at least treasonable, to part with. To believe anything but the worst of a man whom she heard cursed and abused continually by her uncles, cousins, and their associates and retainers, seemed a monstrous thing—and every effort de Spain made to dislodge her prejudices called for fresh distrust on her part. What had most shaken her convictions—and it would come back to her in spite of everything she could do to keep it out of her mind—was the recollection of the murder of his father, the tragic death of his mother. As for the facts of his story, somehow she never thought of questioning them. The seal of its dreadful truth he carried on his face.

That day Nan washed her hair. On the second day—because there were no good reasons for it—she found herself deciding conscientiously to see de Spain for the last time, and toward sunset. This was about the time he had suggested, but it really seemed, after long thought, the best time. She began dressing early for her trip, and with constantly recurring dissatisfaction with her wardrobe—picking the best of her limited stock of silk stockings, choosing the freshest of her few pairs of tan boots. All of her riding-skirts looked shabby as she fretfully inspected them; but Bonita pressed out the newest one for the hurried occasion, while Nan used the interval, with more than usual care, on her troublesome hair—never less tractable, it seemed, in her life. Nothing, in truth, in her appearance, satisfied her, and she was obliged at last to turn from her glass with the hateful sigh that it made no difference anyway.

De Spain was sitting with his back against a rock, and his knees drawn up, leaning his head on his right hand and resting his elbow on the knee. His left arm hung down over his left knee, and the look on his face was one of reflection and irresolution rather than of action and decision. But he looked so restored after his brief period of nourishment that Nan, when she stepped up on the ledge at sunset, would not have known the wreck she had seen in the same place the week before.

His heart jumped at the sight of her young face, and her clear, courageous eyes surveyed him questioningly as he scrambled to his feet.

"I am going to tramp out of here to-morrow night," he confided to her after his thanks. "It is Saturday; a lot of your men will be in Sleepy Cat—and they won't all be very keen-sighted on their way back. I can get a good start outside before daylight."

She heard him with relief. "What will you do then?" she asked.

"Hide. Watch every chance to crawl a mile nearer Calabasas. I can't walk much, but I ought to make it by Sunday night or Monday morning. I may see a friend—perhaps I may see the other fellow's friend, and with my lone cartridge I may be able to bluff him out of a horse," he suggested, gazing at the crimson tie that flowed from Nan's open neck. "By the way," he added, his glance resting on her right side as he noticed the absence of her holster, "where is your protector to-day?" She made no answer. "Fine form," he said coldly, "to come unarmed on an errand of mercy to a desperado."

Nan flushed with vexation. "I came away in such a hurry I forgot it," she replied lamely.

"A forget might cost you your life."

"Perhaps you've forgotten you left a cartridge-belt behind once yourself," she returned swiftly. The retort startled him. How could she know? But he would not, at first, ask a question, though her eyes told him she knew what she was talking about. They looked at each other a moment in silence.

De Spain, convicted, finally laid his fingers over the butt of his empty revolver. "How did you find that out?"

She tossed her head. They were standing only a few feet apart, de Spain supporting himself now with his left hand high up against the wall; Nan, with her shoulder lightly against it; both had become quizzical. "Other people forget, too, then," was all she said, fingering the loosened tie as the breeze from the west blew it toward her shoulder.

"No," he protested, "I didn't forget; not that time. I went over to the joint to get a cup of coffee and expected to be back within five minutes, never dreaming of walking into a bear trap." He drew his revolver and, breaking it negligently, took out the single cartridge. "Take this." He held the cartridge in his left hand and took two halting steps toward her—"since you are unarmed, I will be, too. Not that this puts us on an even footing. I don't mean that. Nothing would. You would be too much for me in any kind of a contest, armed or unarmed."

"What do you mean?" she demanded to hide her confusion. And she saw that each step he took cost pain, skilfully concealed.

"I mean," he said, "you are to take this cartridge as a remembrance of my forgetfulness and your adventure."

She drew back. "I don't want it."

"Take it."

He was persistent. She allowed him to drop the loaded shell into her hand. "Now," he continued, replacing his gun, "if I encounter any of your people in an attempt to break through a line, and somebody gets killed, you will know, when you hear the story, that this time, at least, I didn't 'start it.'"

"All the same—" She hesitated. "I don't think that's exactly right. You need not shoot my people, even if you meet them. There are plenty of others you might meet——"

He put her objections aside, enjoying being so near her and happy that she made no retreat. "My reputation," he insisted, "has suffered a little in Morgan's Gap. I mean that at least one who makes her home under Music Mountain shall know differently of me. What's that?" He heard a sound. "Listen!"

The two, looking at each other, strained their ears to hear more through the rush of the falling water. "Some one is coming," said de Spain. Nan ran lightly to where she could peep over the ledge. Hardly pausing as she glanced down, she stepped quickly back. "I'll go right on up the mountain to the azalea fields," she said hastily.

He nodded. "I'll hide. Stop. If you are questioned, you don't know I'm here. You must say so for your own sake, not for mine."

She was gone before he had finished. De Spain drew quickly back to where he could secrete himself. In another moment he heard heavy footsteps where he had stood with his visitor. But the footsteps crossed the ledge, and their sound died away up the path Nan had taken. De Spain could not see the intruder. It was impossible to conjecture who he was or what his errand, and de Spain could only await whatever should develop. He waited several minutes before he heard any sign of life above. Then snatches of two voices began to reach him. He could distinguish Nan's voice and at intervals the heavier tones of a man. The two were descending. In a few moments they reached the ledge, and de Spain, near at hand, could hear every word.

"Hold on a minute," said the man roughly. His voice was heavy and his utterance harsh.

"I must get home," objected Nan.

"Hold on, I tell you," returned her companion. De Spain could not see, but he began already to feel the scene. "I want to talk to you."

"We can talk going down," parried Nan.

De Spain heard her hurried footfalls. "No, you don't," retorted her companion, evidently cutting off her retreat.

"Gale Morgan!" There was a blaze in Nan's sharp exclamation. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you and I are going to have this out right here, before we leave this ledge."

"I tell you, I want to go home."

"You'll go home when I say so."



"How dare you stop me!"

"I'll show you what I dare, young lady. You've been backing and filling with me for two years. Now I want to know what you're going to do."

"Gale! Won't you have a little sense? Come along home with me, like a good fellow, and I'll talk things over with you just as long as you like."

"You'll talk things over with me right here, and as long as I like," he retorted savagely. "Every time I ask you to marry me you've got some new excuse."

"It's shameful for you to act in this way, Gale." She spoke low and rapidly to her enraged suitor. De Spain alone knew it was to keep her humiliation from his own ears, and he made no effort to follow her quick, pleading words. The moment was most embarrassing for two of the three involved. But nothing that Nan could say would win from her cousin any reprieve.

"When you came back from school I told Duke I was going to marry you. He said, all right," persisted her cousin stubbornly.

"Gale Morgan, what Uncle Duke said, or didn't say, has nothing whatever to do with my consent."

"I told you I was going to marry you."

"Does that bind me to get married, when I don't want to?"

"You said you'd marry me."

Nan exploded: "I never, never said so in this world." Her voice shook with indignation. "You know that's a downright falsehood."

"You said you didn't care for anybody else," he fairly bellowed. "Now I want to know whether you'll marry me if I take you over to Sleepy Cat to-morrow?"

"No!" Nan flung out her answer, reckless of consequence. "I'll never marry you. Let me go home."

"You'll go home when I get through with you. You've fooled me long enough."

Her blood froze at the look in his face. "How dare you!" she gasped. "Get out of my way!"

"You damned little vixen!" He sprang forward and caught her by the wrist. "I'll take the kinks out of you. You wouldn't marry me your way, now you'll marry me mine."

She fought like a tigress. He dragged her struggling into his arms. But above her half-stifled cries and his grunting laugh, Morgan heard a sharp voice: "Take your hands off that girl!"

Whirling, with Nan in his savage arms, the half-drunken mountaineer saw de Spain ten feet away, his right hand resting on the grip of his revolver. Stunned, but sobered by mortal danger, Morgan greeted his enemy with an oath. "Stand away from that girl!" repeated de Spain harshly, backing the words with a step forward. Morgan's grasp relaxed. Nan, jerking away, looked at de Spain and instantly stepped in front of her cousin, on whom de Spain seemed about to draw.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Morgan, with an enraged oath.

"I left some business with you the other day at Calabasas half finished," said de Spain. "I'm here this afternoon to clean it up. Get away from that girl!"

His manner frightened even Nan. The quick step to the side and back—poising himself like a fencer—his revolver restrained a moment in its sheath by an eager right arm, as if at any instant it might leap into deadly play.

Shocked with new fear, Nan hesitated. If it was play, it was too realistic for the nerves even of a mountain girl. De Spain's angry face and burning eyes photographed themselves on her memory from that moment. But whatever he meant, she had her part to do. She backed, with arms spread low at her sides, directly against her cousin. "You shan't fight," she cried at de Spain.

"Stand away from that man!" retorted de Spain sternly.

"You shan't kill my cousin. What do you mean? What are you doing here? Leave us!"

"Get away, Nan, I tell you. I'll finish him," cried Morgan, puncturing every word with an oath.

She whirled and caught her cousin in her arms. "He will shoot us both if you fire. Take me away, Gale. You coward," she exclaimed, whirling again with trembling tones on de Spain, "would you kill a woman?"

De Spain saw the danger was past. It needed hardly an instant to show him that Morgan had lost stomach for a fight. He talked wrathfully, but he made no motion to draw. "I see I've got to chase you into a fight," said de Spain contemptuously, and starting gingerly to circle the hesitating cousin. Nan, in her excitement, ran directly toward the enemy, as if to cut off his movement.

"Don't you dare put me in danger," she cried, facing de Spain threateningly. "Don't you dare fight my cousin here."

"Stand away from me," hammered de Spain, eying Morgan steadily.

"He is wounded now," stormed Nan, so fast she could hardly frame the words. "You shan't kill him. If you are a man, don't shoot a wounded man and a woman. You shan't shoot. Gale! protect yourself!" Whirling to face her cousin, she took the chance to back directly against de Spain. Both hands were spread open and partly behind her, the palms up, as if to check him. In the instant that she and de Spain were in contact he realized, rather than saw—for his eyes never released Morgan's eyes—what she was frantically slipping to him—the loaded cartridge. It was done in a flash, and she was running from him again. Her warm fingers had swept across his own. She had returned to him, voluntarily, his slender chance for life. But in doing it she had challenged him to a new and overwhelming interest in life itself. And again, in front of her cousin, she was crying out anew against the shedding of blood.

"I came up here to fight a man. I don't fight women," muttered de Spain, maintaining the deceit and regarding both with an unpromising visage. Then to Morgan. "I'll talk to you later. But you've got to fight or get away from here, both of you, in ten seconds."

"Take me away, Gale," cried Nan. "Leave him here—take me home! Take me home!"

She caught her cousin's arm. "Stay right where you are," shouted Morgan, pointing at de Spain, and following Nan as she pulled him along. "When I come back, I'll give you what you're looking for."

"Bring your friends," said de Spain tauntingly. "I'll accommodate four more of you. Stop!" With one hand still on his revolver he pointed the way. "Go down that trail first, Morgan. Stay where you are, girl, till he gets down that hill. You won't pot me over her shoulder for a while yet. Move!"

Morgan took the path sullenly, de Spain covering every step he took. Behind de Spain Nan stood waiting for her cousin to get beyond earshot. "What," she whispered hurriedly to de Spain, "will you do?"

Covering Morgan, who could whirl on him at any turn in the descent, de Spain could not look at her in answering. "Looks pretty rocky, doesn't it?"

"He will start the whole Gap as soon as he gets to his horse."

He looked at the darkening sky. "They won't be very active on the job before morning."

Morgan was at a safe distance. De Spain turned to Nan. He tried to speak out to her, but she sternly smothered his every effort. Her cheeks were on fire, she breathed fast, her eyes burned.

"It looks," muttered de Spain, "as if I should have to climb Music Mountain to make a get-away."

"There is no good place to hide anywhere above here," said Nan, regarding him intently.

"Why look so hard at me, then?" he asked. "If this is the last of it, I can take it here with our one lone cartridge."

Her eyes were bent on him as if they would pierce him through. "If I save your life—" still breathing fast, she hesitated for words—"you won't trick me—ever—will you?"

Steadily returning her appealing gaze, de Spain answered with deliberation. "Don't ever give me a chance to trick you, Nan."

"What do you mean?" she demanded, fear and distrust burning in her tone.

"My life," he said slowly, "isn't worth it."

"You know—" He could see her resolute underlip, pink with fresh young blood, quiver with intensity of feeling as she faltered. "You know what every man says of every girl—foolish, trusting, easy to deceive—everything like that."

"May God wither my tongue before ever it speaks to deceive you, Nan."

"A while ago you frightened me so——"

"Frightened you! Great God!" He stepped closer and looked straight down into her eyes. "If you had raised just one finger when I was bluffing that fellow, I'd have calmed down and eaten out of your little hand, by the hour!"

"There's not a moment to lose," she said swiftly. "Listen: a trail around this mountain leads out of the Gap, straight across the face of El Capitan."

"I can make it."

"Listen! It is terribly dangerous——"

"Whatever it is it's a concrete boulevard to a man in my fix."

"It is half a mile—only inches wide in places—up and down—loose rock——"

"Some trail!"

"If you slip it's a thousand feet——"

"A hundred would be more than plenty."

"A good climber can do it—I have done it. I'd even go with you, if I could."

"Why?"

She shook her head angrily at what he dared show in his eyes. "Oh, keep still, listen!"

"I know you'd go, Nan," he declared unperturbed. "But believe me, I never would let you."

"I can't go, because to do any good I must meet you with a horse outside."

He only looked silently at her, and she turned her eyes from his gaze. "See," she said, taking him eagerly to the back of the ledge and pointing, "follow that trail, the one to the east—you can't get lost; you can reach El Capitan before dark—it's very close. Creep carefully across El Capitan on that narrow trail, and on the other side there is a wide one clear down to the road—oh, do be careful on El Capitan."

"I'll be careful."

"I must watch my chance to get away from the corral with a horse. If I fail it will be because I am locked up at home, and you must hide and do the best you can. How much they will surmise of this, I don't know."

"Go now, this minute," he said, restraining his words. "If you don't come, I shall know why."

She turned without speaking and, fearless as a chamois, ran down the rocks. De Spain, losing not a moment, hobbled rapidly up along the granite-walled passage that led the way to his chance for life.



CHAPTER XVI

A VENTURE IN THE DARK

Pushing his way hastily forward when he could make haste; crawling slowly on his hands and knees when held by opposing rock; feeling for narrow footholds among loose and treacherous fragments; flattening himself like a leech against the face of the precipice when the narrowing ledge left him only inches under foot; clinging with torn hands to every favoring crevice, and pausing when the peril was extreme for fresh strength, de Spain dragged his injured foot across the sheer face of El Capitan in the last shadows of the day's failing light.

Half-way across, he stopped to look down. Far below lay the valley shrouded in night. Where he stood, stars, already bright, lighted the peaks. But nowhere in the depths could he see any sign of life. Spent by his effort, de Spain reached the rendezvous Nan had indicated, as nearly as the stars would tell him, by ten o'clock. He fell asleep in the aspen grove. Horsemen passing not a hundred yards away roused him.

He could not tell how many or who they were, but from the sounds he judged they were riding into the Gap. The moon was not yet up, so he knew it was not much after midnight. The ground was very cold, and he crawled farther on toward the road along which Nan had said he might look for her. It was only after a long and doubtful hour that he heard the muffled footfalls of a horse. He stood concealed among the smaller trees until he could distinguish the outlines of the animal, and his eye caught the figure of the rider.

De Spain stepped out of the trees, and, moving toward Nan, caught her hand and helped her to the ground.

She enjoined silence, and led the horse into the little grove. Stopping well within it, she stooped and began rearranging the mufflers on the hoofs.

"I'm afraid I'm too late," she said. "How long have you been here?" She faced de Spain with one hand on the pony's shoulder.

"How could you get here at all?" he asked, reaching clandestinely for her other hand.

"I got terribly frightened thinking of your trying El Capitan. Did you have any falls?"

"You see I'm here—I've even slept since. You! How could you get here at all with a horse?"

"If I'm only not too late," she murmured, drawing her hand away.

"I've loads of time, it's not one o'clock."

"They are hiding on both trails outside watching for you—and the moon will be up—" She seemed very anxious. De Spain made light of her fears. "I'll get past them—I've got to, Nan. Don't give it a thought."

"Every corner is watched," she repeated anxiously.

"But I tell you I'll dodge them, Nan."

"They have rifles."

"They won't get a chance to use them on me."

"I don't know what you'll think of me—" He heard the troubled note in her voice.

"What do you mean?"

She began to unbutton her jacket. Throwing back the revers she felt inside around her waist, unfastened after a moment and drew forth a leathern strap. She laid it in de Spain's hands. "This is yours," she said in a whisper.

He felt it questioningly, hurriedly, then with amazement. "Not a cartridge-belt!" he exclaimed.

"It's your own."

"Where—?" She made no answer. "Where did you get it, Nan?" he whispered hurriedly.

"Where you left it."

"How?" She was silent. "When?"

"To-night."

"Have you been to Calabasas and back to-night?"

"Everybody but Sassoon is in the chase," she replied uneasily—as if not knowing what to say, or how to say it. "They said you should never leave the Gap alive—they are ready with traps everywhere. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't bear—after what—you did for me to-night—to think of your being shot down like a dog, when you were only trying to get away."

"I wouldn't have had you take a ride like that for forty belts!"

"McAlpin showed it to me the last time I was at the stage barn, hanging where you left it." He strapped the cartridges around him.

"You should never have taken that ride for it. But since you have—" He had drawn his revolver from his waistband. He broke it now and held it out. "Load it for me, Nan."

"What do you mean?"

"Put four more cartridges in it yourself. Except for your cartridge, the gun is empty. When you do that you will know none of them ever will be used against your own except to protect my life. And if you have any among them whose life ought to come ahead of mine—name him, or them, now. Do as I tell you—load the gun."

He took hold of her hands and, in spite of her refusals, made her do his will. He guided her hand to draw the cartridges, one after another, from his belt, and waited for her to slip them in the darkness into the empty cylinder, to close the breech, and hand the gun back.

"Now, Nan," he said, "you know me. You may yet have doubts—they will all die. You will hear many stories about me—but you will say: 'I put the cartridges in his revolver with my own hands, and I know he won't abuse the means of defense I gave him myself.' There can never be any real doubts or misunderstandings between us again, Nan, if you'll forgive me for making a fool of myself when I met you at Tenison's. I didn't dream you were desperate about the way your uncle was playing; I pieced it all together afterward." He waited for her to speak, but she remained silent.

"You have given me my life, my defense," he continued, passing from a subject that he perceived was better left untouched. "Who is nearest and dearest to you at home?"

"My Uncle Duke."

"Then I never will raise a hand against your Uncle Duke. And this man, to-night—this cousin—Gale? Nan, what is that man?"

"I hate him."

"Thank God! So do I!"

"But he is a cousin."

"Then I suppose he must be one of mine."

"Unless he tries to kill you."

"He won't be very long in trying that. And now, what about yourself? What have you got to defend yourself against him, and against every other drunken man?"

She laid her own pistol without a word in de Spain's hand. He felt it, opened, closed, and gave it back. "That's a good defender—when it's in reach. When it's at home it's a poor one."

"It will never be at home again except when I am."

"Shall I tell you a secret?"

"What is it?" asked Nan unsuspectingly.

"We are engaged to be married." She sprang from him like a deer. "It's a dead secret," he said gravely; "nobody knows it yet—not even you."

"You need never talk again like that if you want to be friends with me," she said indignantly. "I hate it."

"Hate it if you will; it's so. And it began when you handed me that little bit of lead and brass on the mountain to-night, to defend your life and mine."

"I'll hate you if you persecute me the way Gale does. The moon is almost up. You must go."

"What have you on your feet, Nan?"

"Moccasins." He stooped down and felt one with his hand. She drew her foot hastily away. "What a girl to manage!" he exclaimed.

"I'm going home," she said with decision.

"Don't for a minute yet, Nan," he pleaded. "Think how long it will be before I can ever see you again!"

"You may never see anybody again if you don't realize your danger to-night. Can you ride with a hackamore?"

"Like a dream."

"I didn't dare bring anything else."

"You haven't told me," he persisted, "how you got away at all." They had walked out of the trees. He looked reluctantly to the east. "Tell me and I'll go," he promised.

"After I went up to my room I waited till the house was all quiet. Then I started for Calabasas. When I came back I got up to my room without being seen, and sat at the window a long time. I waited till all the men stopped riding past. Then I climbed through the window and down the kitchen roof, and let myself down to the ground. Some more men came past, and I hid on the porch and slipped over to the horse barns and found a hackamore, and went down to the corral and hunted around till I found this little pinto—she's the best to ride bareback."

"I could ride a razorback—why take all that trouble for me?"

"If you don't start while you have a chance, you undo everything I have tried to do to avoid a fight."

The wind, stirring softly, set the aspen leaves quivering. The stars, chilled in the thin, clear night air, hung diamond-like in the heavens and the eastern sky across the distant desert paled for the rising moon. The two standing at the horse's head listened a moment together in the darkness. De Spain, leaning forward, said something in a low, laughing voice. Nan made no answer. Then, bending, he took her hand and, before she could release it, caught it up to his lips.

* * * * *

For a long time after he had gone she stood, listening for a shot—wondering, breathless at moments, whether de Spain could get past the waiting traps. The moon came up, and still lingering, torn with suspense, she watched a drift of fleecy clouds darken it. She scanned anxiously the wrinkled face of the desert which, with a woman's craft, hides at night the accidents of age. It seemed to Nan as if she could overlook every foot of the motionless sea for miles before her; but she well knew how much it could conceal of ambush and death even when it professed so fairly to reveal all. Strain her ears as she would, the desert gave back no ripple of sound. No shot echoed from its sinister recesses—not even the clatter of retreating hoofs.

De Spain, true to all she had ever heard of his Indian-like stealth, had left her side unabashed and unafraid—living, laughing, paying bold court to her even when she stubbornly refused to be courted—and had made himself in the twinkling of an eye a part of the silence beyond—the silence of the night, the wind, the stars, the waste of sand, and of all the mystery that brooded upon it. She would have welcomed, in her keen suspense, a sound of some kind, some reminder that he yet lived and could yet laugh; none came.

When it seemed as if an hour must have passed Nan felt her way noiselessly home. She regained her room as she had left it, through her east window, and, throwing herself across her bed, fell into a heavy sleep.

* * * * *

Day was breaking when the night boss, standing in the doorway at the Calabasas barns, saw a horseman riding at a leisurely pace up the Thief River road. The barnman scrutinized the approaching stranger closely. There was something strange and something familiar in the outlines of the figure. But when the night-rider had dismounted in front of the barn door, turned his horse loose, and, limping stiffly, walked forward on foot, the man rubbed his eyes hard before he could believe them. Then he uttered an incredulous greeting and led Henry de Spain into the barn office.

"There's friends of yours in your room up-stairs right now," he declared, bulging with shock. De Spain, sitting down, forbade the barnman to disturb them, only asking who they were.

When he had asked half a dozen more leisurely questions and avoided answering twice as many, the barnman at de Spain's request helped him up-stairs. Beside himself with excitement, the night boss turned, grinning, as he laid one hand on the door-knob and the other on de Spain's shoulder.

"You couldn't have come," he whispered loudly, "at a better time."

The entryway was dark, and from the silence within the room one might have thought its occupants, if there were such, wrapped in slumber. But at intervals a faint clicking sound could be heard. The night man threw open the door. By the light of two stage dash-lamps, one set on the dresser and the other on a window-ledge, four men sat about a rickety table in a life-and-death struggle at cards. No voice broke the tense silence, not even when the door was thrown broadly open.

No one—neither Lefever, Scott, Frank Elpaso, nor McAlpin—looked up when de Spain walked into the room and, with the night man tiptoeing behind, advanced composedly toward the group. Even then his presence would have passed unnoticed, but that Bob Scott's ear mechanically recorded the limping step and transmitted to his trained intelligence merely notice of something unusual.

Scott, picking up his cards one at a time as Lefever dealt, raised his eyes. Startling as the sight of the man given up for dead must have been, no muscle of Bob Scott's body moved. His expression of surprise slowly dissolved into a grin that mutely invited the others, as he had found out for himself, to find out for themselves.

Lefever finished his deal, threw down the pack, and picked up his hand. His suspicious eyes never rose above the level of the faces at the table; but when he had thumbed his cards and looked from one to the other of the remaining players to read the weather-signals, he perceived on Scott's face an unwonted expression, and looked to where the scout's gaze was turned for an explanation of it. Lefever's own eyes at the sight of the thinned, familiar face behind Elpaso's chair, starting, opened like full moons. The big fellow spread one hand out, his cards hidden within it, and with the other hand prudently drew down his pile of chips. "Gentlemen," he said lightly, "this game is interned." He rose and put a silent hand across the table over Elpaso's shoulder. "Henry," he exclaimed impassively, "one question, if you please—and only one: How in thunder did you do it?"



CHAPTER XVII

STRATEGY

One week went to repairs. To a man of action such a week is longer than ten years of service. But chained to a bed in the Sleepy Cat hospital, de Spain had no escape from one week of thinking, and for that week he thought about Nan Morgan.

He rebelled at the situation that had placed him at enmity with her kinsfolk, yet he realized there was no help for this. The Morgans were a law unto themselves. Hardened men with a hardened code, they lived in their fastness like Ishmaelites. Counselled by their leader, old Duke Morgan, brains of the clan and influential enough to keep outside the penalties of the law themselves, their understanding with the outlaws of the Sinks was apparently complete, and the hospitality of one or another of their following within the Gap afforded a refuge for practically any mountain criminal.

But none of these reflections lightened de Spain's burden of discontent. One thought alone possessed him—Nan; her comely body, which he worshipped to the tips of her graceful fingers; her alert mind, which he saw reflected in the simplest thought she expressed; her mobile lips, which he followed to the least sound they gave forth! The longer he pictured her, figured as she had appeared to him like a phantom on Music Mountain, the more he longed to be back at the foot of it, wounded again and famished. And the impulse that moved him the first moment he could get out of bed and into a saddle was to spur his way hard and fast to her; to make her, against a score of burly cousins, his own; and never to release her from his sudden arms again.

With de Spain, to think was to do; at least to do something, but not without further careful thinking, and not without anticipating every chance of failure. And his manner was to cast up all difficulties and obstacles in a situation, brush them aside, and have his will if the heavens fell. Such a temperament he had inherited from his father's fiery heart and his mother's suffering, close-set lips as he had remembered them in the little pictures of her; and he now set himself, while doing his routine work every day, to do one particular thing—to see, talk to, plead with, struggle with the woman, or girl, rather—child even, to his thoughts, so fragile she was—this girl who had given him back his life against her own marauding relatives.

For many days Nan seemed a match for all the wiles de Spain could use to catch sight of her. He spent his days riding up and down the line on horseback; driving behind his team; on the stages; in and out of the streets of Sleepy Cat—nominally looking for stock, for equipment, for supplies, or frankly for nothing—but always looking for Nan.

His friends saw that something was absorbing him in an unusual, even an extraordinary way, yet none could arrive at a certain conclusion as to what it was. When Scott in secret conference was appealed to by Jeffries, he smiled foolishly, at a loss, and shook his head.

Lefever argued with less reticence. "It stands to reason, Jeffries. A man that went through that ten minutes at Calabasas would naturally think a good deal about what he is getting out of his job, and what his future chances are for being promoted any minute, day or night, by a forty-five."

"Perhaps his salary had better be raised," conceded Jeffries reflectively.

"I figure," pursued Lefever, "that he has already saved the company fifty thousands in depredations during the next year or two. The Calabasas gang is busted for five years—they would eat out of his hand—isn't that so, Bob?"

"The Calabasas gang, yes; not the Morgans."

John's eyes opened on Scott with that solemnity he could assume to bolster a baldly unconvincing statement. "Not now, Bob. Not now, I admit; but they will."

Scott only smiled. "What do you make out of the way he acts?" persisted Lefever, resenting his companion's incredulity.

"I can't make anything of it," premised Bob, "except that he has something on his mind. If you'll tell me what happened from the time he jumped through the window at Calabasas till he walked into his room that night at the barn, I'll tell you what he's thinking about."

"What do you mean, what happened?"

"Henry left some things out of his story."

"How do you know?"

"I heard him tell it."

Jeffries, acting without delay on the suspicion that de Spain was getting ready to resign, raised his salary. To his surprise, de Spain told him that the company was already paying him more than he was worth and declined the raise; yet he took nobody whomsoever into his confidence.

However, the scent of something concealed in de Spain's story had long before touched Lefever's own nostrils, and he was stimulated by mere pride to run the secret down. Accordingly, he set himself to find, in a decent way, something in the nature of an explanation.

De Spain, in the interval, made no progress in his endeavor to see Nan. The one man in the country who could have surmised the situation between the two—the barn boss, McAlpin—if he entertained suspicions, was far too pawky to share them with any one.

When two weeks had passed without de Spain's having seen Nan or having heard of her being seen, the conclusion urged itself on him that she was either ill or in trouble—perhaps in trouble for helping him; a moment later he was laying plans to get into the Gap to find out.

Nothing in the way of a venture could be more foolhardy—this he admitted to himself—nothing, he consoled himself by reflecting, but something stronger than danger could justify it. Of all the motley Morgan following within the mountain fastness he could count on but one man to help him in the slightest degree—this was the derelict, Bull Page. There was no choice but to use him, and he was easily enlisted, for the Calabasas affair had made a heroic figure of de Spain in the barrooms. De Spain, accordingly, lay in wait for the old man and intercepted him one day on the road to Sleepy Cat, walking the twenty miles patiently for his whiskey.

"You must be the only man in the Gap, Bull, that can't borrow or steal a horse to ride," remarked de Spain, stopping him near the river bridge.

Page pushed back the broken brim of his hat and looked up. "You wouldn't believe it," he said, imparting a cheerful confidence, "but ten years ago I had horses to lend to every man 'tween here and Thief River." He nodded toward Sleepy Cat with a wrecked smile, and by a dramatic chance the broken hat brim fell with the words: "They've got 'em all."

"Your fault, Bull."

"Say!" Up went the broken brim, and the whiskied face lighted with a shaking smile, "you turned some trick on that Calabasas crew—some fight," Bull chuckled.

"Bull, is old Duke Morgan a Republican?"

Bull looked surprised at the turn of de Spain's question, but answered in good faith: "Duke votes 'most any ticket that's agin the railroad."

"How about picking a couple of good barnmen over in the Gap, Bull?"

"What kind of a job y'got?"

"See McAlpin the next time you're over at Calabasas. How about that girl that lives with Duke?"

Bull's face lighted. "Nan! Say! she's a little hummer!"

"I hear she's gone down to Thief River teaching school."

"Came by Duke's less'n three hours ago. Seen her in the kitchen makin' bread."

"They're looking for a school-teacher down there, anyway. Much sickness in the Gap lately, Bull?"

"On'y sickness I knowed lately is what you're responsible for y'self," retorted Bull with a grin. "Pity y' left over any chips at all from that Calabasas job, eh?"

"See McAlpin, Bull, next time you're over Calabasas way. Here"—de Spain drew some currency from his pocket and handed a bill to Page. "Go get your hair cut. Don't talk too much—wear your whiskers long and your tongue short."

"Right-o!"

"You understand."

"Take it from old Bull Page, he's a world's wonder of a sucker, but he knows his friends."

"But remember this—you don't know me. If anybody knows you for a friend of mine, you are no good to me. See?"

Bull was beyond expressing his comprehension in words alone. He winked, nodded, and screwed his face into a thousand wrinkles. De Spain, wheeling, rode away, the old man blinking first after him, and then at the money in his hand. He didn't profess to understand everything in the high country, but he could still distinguish the principal figures at the end of a bank-note. When he tramped to Calabasas the next day to interview McAlpin he received more advice, with a strong burr, about keeping his own counsel, and a little expense money to run him until an opening presented itself on the pay-roll.

But long before Bull Page reached Calabasas that day de Spain had acted. When he left Bull at the bridge, he started for Calabasas, took supper there, ordered a saddle-horse for one o'clock in the morning, went to his room, slept soundly and, shortly after he was called, started for Music Mountain. He walked his horse into the Gap and rode straight for Duke Morgan's fortress. Leaving the horse under a heavy mountain-pine close to the road, de Spain walked carefully but directly around the house to the east side. The sky was cloudy and the darkness almost complete. He made his way as close as he could to Nan's window, and raised the soft, crooning note of the desert owl.

After a while he was able to distinguish the outline of her casement, and, with much patience and some little skill remaining from the boyhood days, he kept up the faint call. Down at the big barn the chained watch-dog tore himself with a fury of barking at the intruder, but mountain-lions were common in the Gap, and the noisy sentinel gained no credit for his alarm. Indeed, when the dog slackened his fierceness, de Spain threw a stone over his way to encourage a fresh outburst. But neither the guardian nor the intruder was able to arouse any one within the house.

Undeterred by his failure, de Spain held his ground as long as he dared. When daybreak threatened, he withdrew. The following night he was in the Gap earlier, and with renewed determination. He tossed a pebble into Nan's open window and renewed his soft call. Soon, a light flickered for an instant within the room and died out. In the darkness following this, de Spain thought he discerned a figure outlined at the casement. Some minutes later a door opened and closed. He repeated the cry of the owl, and could hear a footstep; the next moment he whispered her name as she stood before him.

"What is it you want?" she asked, so calmly that it upset him. "Why do you come here?"

Where he stood he was afraid of the sound of her voice, and afraid of his own. "To see you," he said, collecting himself. "Come over to the pine-tree."

Under its heavy branches where the darkness was most intense, he told her why he had come—because he could not see her anywhere outside.

"There is nothing to see me about," she responded, still calm. "I helped you because you were wounded. I was glad to see you get away without fighting—I hate bloodshed."

"But put yourself in my place a little, won't you? After what you did for me, isn't it natural I should want to be sure you are well and not in any trouble on my account?"

"It may be natural, but it isn't necessary. I am in no trouble. No one here knows I even know you."

"Excuse me for coming, then. I couldn't rest, Nan, without knowing something. I was here last night."

"I know you were."

He started. "You made no sign."

"Why should I? I suspected it was you. When you came again to-night I knew I should have to speak to you—at least, to ask you not to come again."

"But you will be in and out of town sometimes, won't you, Nan?"

"If I am, it will not be to talk with you."

The words were spoken deliberately. De Spain was silent for a moment. "Not even to speak to me?" he asked.

"You must know the position I am in," she answered. "And what a position you place me in if I am seen to speak to you. This is my home. You are the enemy of my people."

"Not because I want to be."

"And you can't expect them not to resent any acquaintance on my part with you."

He paused before continuing. "Do you count Gale Morgan as one of your people?" he asked evenly.

"I suppose I must."

"Don't you think you ought to count all of your friends, your well-wishers, those who would defend you with their lives, among your people?" She made no answer. "Aren't they the kind of people," he persisted, "you need when you are in trouble?"

"You needn't remind me I should be grateful to you——"

"Nan!" he exclaimed.

"For I am," she continued, unmoved. "But——"

"It's a shame to accuse me in that way."

"You were thinking when you spoke of what happened with Gale on Music Mountain."

"I wish to God you and I were on Music Mountain again! I never lived or did anything worth living for, till you came to me that day on Music Mountain. It's true I was thinking of what happened when I spoke—but not to remind you you owed anything to me. You don't; get that out of your head."

"I do, though."

"I spoke in the way I did because I wanted to remind you of what might happen some time when I'm not near."

"I shan't be caught off my guard again. I know how to defend myself from a drunken man."

He could not restrain all the bitterness he felt. "That man," he said deliberately, "is more dangerous sober than drunk."

"When I can't defend myself, my uncle will defend me."

"Ask him to let me help."

"He doesn't need any help. And he would never ask you, if he did. I can't live at home and know you; that is why I ask you not to come again."

He was silent. "Don't you think, all things considered," she hesitated, as if not knowing how easiest to put it, "you ought to be willing to shake hands and say good-by?"

"Why, if you wish it," he answered, taken aback. And he added more quietly, "yes, if you say so."

"I mean for good."

"I—" he returned, pausing, "don't."

"You are not willing to be fair."

"I want to be fair—I don't want to promise more than human nature will stand for—and then break my word."

"I am not asking a whole lot."

"Not a whole lot to you, I know. But do you really mean that you don't want me ever to speak to you again?"

"If you must put it that way—yes."

"Well," he took a long breath, "there is one way to make sure of that. I'll tell you honestly I don't want to stand in the way of such a wish, if it's really yours. As you have said, it isn't fair, perhaps, for me to go against it. Got your pistol with you, Nan?"

"No."

"That is the way you take care of yourself, is it?"

"I'm not afraid of you."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself not to be. And you don't even know whom you'll meet before you can lock the front door again. You promised me never to go out without it. Promise me that once more, will you?" She did as he asked her. "Now, give me your hand, please," he went on. "Take hold of this."

"What is it?"

"The butt of my revolver. Don't be afraid." She heard the slight click of the hammer with a thrill of strange apprehension. "What are you doing?" she demanded hurriedly.

"Put your finger on the trigger—so. It is cocked. Now pull."

She caught her breath. "What do you mean?"

He was holding the gun in his two hands, his fingers overlapping hers, the muzzle at the breast of his jacket. "Pull," he repeated, "that's all you have to do; I'm steadying it."

She snatched back her hand. "What do you mean?" she cried. "For me to kill you? Shame!"

"You are too excited—all I asked you was to take the trouble to crook your finger—and I'll never speak to you again—you'll have your wish forever."

"Shame!"

"Why shame?" he retorted. "I mean what I say. If you meant what you said, why don't you put it out of my power ever to speak to you? Do you want me to pull the trigger?"

"I told you once I'm not an assassin—how dare you ask me to do such a thing?" she cried furiously.

"Call your uncle," he suggested coolly. "You may hold this meantime so you'll know he's in no danger. Take my gun and call your uncle——"

"Shame on you!"

"Call Gale—call any man in the Gap—they'll jump at the chance."

"You are a cold-blooded, brutal wretch—I'm sorry I ever helped you—I'm sorry I ever let you help me—I'm sorry I ever saw you!"

She sprang away before he could interpose a word. He stood stunned by the suddenness of her outburst, trying to listen and to breathe at the same time. He heard the front door close, and stood waiting. But no further sound from the house greeted his ears.

"And I thought," he muttered to himself, "that might calm her down a little. I'm certainly in wrong, now."



CHAPTER XVIII

HER BAD PENNY

Nan reached her room in a fever of excitement, angry at de Spain, bitterly angry at Gale, angry with the mountains, the world, and resentfully fighting the pillow on which she cried herself to sleep.

In the morning every nerve was on edge. When her Uncle Duke, with his chopping utterance, said something short to her at their very early breakfast he was surprised by an answer equally short. Her uncle retorted sharply. A second curt answer greeted his rebuff, and while he stared at her, Nan left the table and the room.

Duke, taking two of the men, started that morning for Sleepy Cat with a bunch of cattle. He rode a fractious horse, as he always did, and this time the horse, infuriated as his horses frequently were by his brutal treatment, bolted in a moment unguarded by his master, and flung Duke on his back in a strip of lava rocks.