They only shook their heads, while several pushed by him even as he spoke. "We're going to distribute our favors equal," said a man as he left. They were actuated by what they called justice, and he could not sway them. The life and welfare of the North were in their hands, as they thought, and there was not one to hesitate. Glenister implored the chairman, but the man answered him:

"It's too late for further discussion, and let me remind you of your promise. You're bound by every obligation that exists for an honorable man—"

"Oh, don't think that I'll give the snap away!" said the other; "but I warn you again not to enter Stillman's house."

He followed out into the night to find that Dextry had disappeared, evidently wishing to avoid argument. Roy had seen signs of unrest beneath the prospector's restraint during the past few days, and indications of a fierce hunger to vent his spleen on the men who had robbed him of his most sacred rights. He was of an intolerant, vindictive nature that would go to any length for vengeance. Retribution was part of his creed.

On his way home, the young man looked at his watch, to find that he had but an hour to determine his course. Instinct prompted him to join his friends and to even the score with the men who had injured him so bitterly, for, measured by standards of the frontier, they were pirates with their lives forfeit. Yet, he could not countenance this step. If only the Vigilantes would be content with making an example—but he knew they would not. The blood hunger of a mob is easy to whet and hard to hold. McNamara would resist, as would Voorhees and the district-attorney, then there would be bloodshed, riot, chaos. The soldiers would be called out and martial law declared, the streets would become skirmish-grounds. The Vigilantes would rout them without question, for every citizen of the North would rally to their aid, and such men could not be stopped. The Judge would go down with the rest of the ring, and what would happen to—her?

He took down his Winchester, oiled and cleaned it, then buckled on a belt of cartridges. Still he wrestled with himself. He felt that he was being ground between his loyalty to the Vigilantes and his own conscience. The girl was one of the gang, he reasoned—she had schemed with them to betray him through his love, and she was pledged to the one man in the world whom he hated with fanatical fury. Why should he think of her in this hour? Six months back he would have looked with jealous eyes upon the right to lead the Vigilantes, but this change that had mastered him—what was it? Not cowardice, nor caution. No. Yet, being intangible, it was none the less marked, as his friends had shown him an hour since.

He slipped out into the night. The mob might do as it pleased elsewhere, but no man should enter her house. He found a light shining from her parlor window, and, noting the shade up a few inches, stole close. Peering through, he discovered Struve and Helen talking. He slunk back into the shadows and remained hidden for a considerable time after the lawyer left, for the dancers were returning from the hotel and passed close by. When the last group had chattered away down the street, he returned to the front of the house and, mounting the steps, knocked sharply. As Helen appeared at the door, he stepped inside and closed it after him.

The girl's hair lay upon her neck and shoulders in tumbled brown masses, while her breast heaved tumultuously at the sudden, grim sight of him. She stepped back against the wall, her wondrous, deep, gray eyes wide and troubled, the blush of modesty struggling with the pallor of dismay.

The picture pained him like a knife-thrust. This girl was for his bitterest enemy—no hope of her was for him. He forgot for a moment that she was false and plotting, then, recalling it, spoke as roughly as he might and stated his errand. Then the old man had appeared on the stairs above, speechless with fright at what he overheard. It was evident that his nerves, so sorely strained by the events of the past week, were now snapped utterly. A human soul naked and panic-stricken is no pleasant sight, so Glenister dropped his eyes and addressed the girl again:

"Don't take anything with you. Just dress and come with me."

The creature on the stairs above stammered and stuttered, inquiringly:

"What outrage is this, Mr. Glenister?"

"The people of Nome are up in arms, and I've come to save you. Don't stop to argue." He spoke impatiently.

"Is this some r-ruse to get me into your power?"

"Uncle Arthur!" exclaimed the girl, sharply. Her eyes met Glenister's and begged him to take no offence.

"I don't understand this atrocity. They must be mad!" wailed the Judge. "You run over to the jail, Mr. Glenister, and tell Voorhees to hurry guards here to protect me. Helen, 'phone to the military post and give the alarm. Tell them the soldiers must come at once."

"Hold on!" said Glenister. "There's no use of doing that—the wires are cut; and I won't notify Voorhees—he can take care of himself. I came to help you, and if you want to escape you'll stop talking and hurry up."

"I don't know what to do," said Stillman, torn by terror and indecision. "You wouldn't hurt an old man, would you? Wait! I'll be down in a minute."

He scrambled up the stairs, tripping on his robe, seemingly forgetting his niece till she called up to him, sharply:

"Stop, Uncle Arthur! You mustn't RUN AWAY." She stood erect and determined, "You wouldn't do THAT, would you? This is our house. You represent the law and the dignity of the government. You mustn't fear a mob of ruffians. We will stay here and meet them, of course."

"Good Lord!" said Glenister. "That's madness. These men aren't ruffians; they are the best citizens of Nome. You don't realize that this is Alaska and that they have sworn to wipe out McNamara's gang. Come along."

"Thank you for your good intentions," she said, "but we have done nothing to run away from. We will get ready to meet these cowards. You had better go or they will find you here."

She moved up the stairs, and, taking the Judge by the arm, led him with her. Of a sudden she had assumed control of the situation unfalteringly, and both men felt the impossibility of thwarting her. Pausing at the top, she turned and looked down.

"We are grateful for your efforts just the same. Good-night."

"Oh, I'm not going," said the young man. "If you stick I'll do the same." He made the rounds of the first-floor rooms, locking doors and windows. As a place of defence it was hopeless, and he saw that he would have to make his stand up-stairs. When sufficient time had elapsed he called up to Helen:

"May I come?"

"Yes," she replied. So he ascended, to find Stillman in the hall, half clothed and cowering, while by the light from the front chamber he saw her finishing her toilet.

"Won't you come with me—it's our last chance?" She only shook her head. "Well, then, put out the light. I'll stand at that front window, and when my eyes get used to the darkness I'll be able to see them before they reach the gate."

She did as directed, taking her place beside him at the opening, while the Judge crept in and sat upon the bed, his heavy breathing the only sound in the room. The two young people stood so close beside each other that the sweet scent of her person awoke in him an almost irresistible longing. He forgot her treachery again, forgot that she was another's, forgot all save that he loved her truly and purely, with a love which was like an agony to him. Her shoulder brushed his arm; he heard the soft rustling of her garment at her breast as she breathed. Some one passed in the street, and she laid a hand upon him fearfully. It was very cold, very tiny, and very soft, but he made no move to take it. The moments dragged along, still, tense, interminable. Occasionally she leaned towards him, and he stooped to catch her whispered words. At such times her breath beat warm against his cheek, and he closed his teeth stubbornly. Out in the night a wolfdog saddened the air, then came the sound of others wrangling and snarling in a near-by corral. This is a chickless land and no cock-crow breaks the midnight peace. The suspense enhanced the Judge's perturbation till his chattering teeth sounded like castanets. Now and then he groaned.

The watchers had lost track of time when their strained eyes detected dark blots materializing out of the shadows.

"There they come," whispered Glenister, forcing her back from the aperture; but she would not be denied, and returned to his side.

As the foremost figures reached the gate, Roy leaned forth and spoke, not loudly, but in tones that sliced through the silence, sharp, clean, and without warning.

"Halt! Don't come inside the fence." There was an instant's confusion; then, before the men beneath had time to answer or take action, he continued: "This is Roy Glenister talking. I told you not to molest these people and I warn you again. We're ready for you."

The leader spoke. "You're a traitor, Glenister."

He winced. "Perhaps I am. You betrayed me first, though; and, traitor or not, you can't come into this house."

There was a murmur at this, and some one said:

"Miss Chester is safe. All we want is the Judge. We won't hang him, not if he'll wear this suit we brought along. He needn't be afraid. Tar is good for the skin."

"Oh, my God!" groaned the limb of the law.

Suddenly a man came running down the planked pavement and into the group.

"McNamara's gone, and so's the marshal and the rest," he panted. There was a moment's silence, and then the leader growled to his men, "Scatter out and rush the house, boys." He raised his voice to the man in the window. "This is your work—you damned turncoat." His followers melted away to right and left, vaulted the fence, and dodged into the shelter of the walls. The click, click of Glenister's Winchester sounded through the room while the sweat stood out on him. He wondered if he could do this deed, if he could really fire on these people. He wondered if his muscles would not wither and paralyze before they obeyed his command.

Helen crowded past him and, leaning half out of the opening, called loudly, her voice ringing clear and true:

"Wait! Wait a moment. I have something to say. Mr. Glenister didn't warn them. They thought you were going to attack the mines and so they rode out there before midnight. I am telling you the truth, really. They left hours ago." It was the first sign she had made, and they recognized her to a man.

There were uncertain mutterings below till a new man raised his voice. Both Roy and Helen recognised Dextry.

"Boys, we've overplayed. We don't want THESE people—McNamara's our meat. Old bald-face up yonder has to do what he's told, and I'm ag'in' this twenty-to-one midnight work. I'm goin' home." There were some whisperings, then the original spokesman called for Judge Stillman. The old man tottered to the window, a palsied, terror-stricken object. The girl was glad he could not be seen from below.

"We won't hurt you this time, Judge, but you've gone far enough. We'll give you another chance, then, if you don't make good, we'll stretch you to a lamp-post. Take this as a warning."

"I—s-shall do my d-d-duty," said the Judge.

The men disappeared into the darkness, and when they had gone Glenister closed the window, pulled down the shades, and lighted a lamp. He knew by how narrow a margin a tragedy had been averted. If he had fired on these men his shot would have kindled a feud which would have consumed every vestige of the court crowd and himself among them. He would have fallen under a false banner, and his life would not have reached to the next sunset. Perhaps it was forfeit now—he could not tell. The Vigilantes would probably look upon his part as traitorous; and, at the very least, he had cut himself off from their support, the only support the Northland offered him. Henceforth he was a renegade, a pariah, hated alike by both factions. He purposely avoided sight of Stillman and turned his back when the Judge extended his hand with expressions of gratitude. His work was done and he wished to leave this house. Helen followed him down to the door and, as he opened it, laid her hand upon his sleeve.

"Words are feeble things, and I can never make amends for all you've done for us."

"For US!" cried Roy, with a break in his voice. "Do you think I sacrificed my honor, betrayed my friends, killed my last hope, ostracized myself, for 'US'? This is the last time I'll trouble you. Perhaps the last time I'll see you. No matter what else you've done, however, you've taught me a lesson, and I thank you for it. I have found myself at last. I'm not an Eskimo any longer- -I'm a man!"

"You've always been that," she said. "I don't understand as much about this affair as I want to, and it seems to me that no one will explain it. I'm very stupid, I guess; but won't you come back to-morrow and tell it to me?"

"No," he said, roughly. "You're not of my people. McNamara and his are no friends of mine, and I'm no friend of theirs." He was half down the steps before she said, softly:

"Good-night, and God bless you—friend."

She returned to the Judge, who was in a pitiable state, and for a long time she labored to soothe him as though he were a child. She undertook to question him about the things which lay uppermost in her mind and which this night had half revealed, but he became fretful and irritated at the mention of mines and mining. She sat beside his bed till he dozed off, puzzling to discover what lay behind the hints she had heard, till her brain and body matched in absolute weariness. The reflex of the day's excitement sapped her strength till she could barely creep to her own couch, where she rolled and sighed—too tired to sleep at once. She awoke finally, with one last nervous flicker, before complete oblivion took her. A sentence was on her mind—it almost seemed as though she had spoken it aloud:

"The handsomest woman in the North...but Glenister ran away."



CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH THE TRUTH BEGINS TO BARE ITSELF

It was nearly noon of the next day when Helen awoke to find that McNamara had ridden in from the Creek and stopped for breakfast with the Judge. He had asked for her, but on hearing the tale of the night's adventure would not allow her to be disturbed. Later, he and the Judge had gone away together.

Although her judgment approved the step she had contemplated the night before, still the girl now felt a strange reluctance to meet McNamara. It is true that she knew no ill of him, except that implied in the accusations of certain embittered men; and she was aware that every strong and aggressive character makes enemies in direct proportionate the qualities which lend him greatness. Nevertheless, she was aware of an inner conflict that she had not foreseen. This man who so confidently believed that she would marry him did not dominate her consciousness.

She had ridden much of late, taking long, solitary gallops beside the shimmering sea that she loved so well, or up the winding valleys into the foot-hills where echoed the roar of swift waters or glinted the flash of shovel blades. This morning her horse was lame, so she determined to walk. In her early rambles she had looked timidly askance at the rough men she met till she discovered their genuine respect and courtesy. The most unkempt among them were often college-bred, although, for that matter, the roughest of the miners showed abundant consideration for a woman. So she was glad to allow the men to talk to her with the fine freedom inspired by the new country and its wide spaces. The wilderness breeds a chivalry all its own.

Thus there seemed to be no danger abroad, though they had told the girl of mad dogs which roamed the city, explaining that the hot weather affects powerfully the thick-coated, shaggy "malamoots." This is the land of the dog, and whereas in winter his lot is to labor and shiver and starve, in summer he loafs, fights, grows fat, and runs mad with the heat.

Helen walked far and, returning, chose an unfamiliar course through the outskirts of the town to avoid meeting any of the women she knew, because of that vivid memory of the night before. As she walked swiftly along she thought that she heard faint cries far behind her. Looking up, she noted that it was a lonely, barren quarter and that the only figure in sight was a woman some distance away. A few paces farther on the shouts recurred—more plainly this time, and a gunshot sounded. Glancing back, she saw several men running, one bearing a smoking revolver, and heard, nearer still, the snarling hubbub of fighting dogs. In a flash the girl's curiosity became horror, for, as she watched, one of the dogs made a sudden dash through the now subdued group of animals and ran swiftly along the planking on which she stood. It was a handsome specimen of the Eskimo malamoot—tall, gray, and coated like a wolf, with the speed, strength, and cunning of its cousin. Its head hung low and swung from side to side as it trotted, the motion flecking foam and slaver. The creature had scattered the pack, and now, swift, menacing, relentless, was coming towards Helen. There was no shelter near, no fence, no house, save the distant one towards which the other woman was making her way. The men, too far away to protect her, shouted hoarse warnings.

Helen did not scream nor hesitate—she turned and ran, terror- stricken, towards the distant cottage. She was blind with fright and felt an utter certainty that the dog would attack her before she could reach safety. Yes—there was the quick patter of his pads close up behind her; her knees weakened; the sheltering door was yet some yards away. But a horse, tethered near the walk, reared and snorted as the flying pair drew near. The mad creature swerved, leaped at the horse's legs, and snapped in fury. Badly frightened at this attack, the horse lunged at his halter, broke it, and galloped away; but the delay had served for Helen, weak and faint, to reach the door. She wrenched at the knob. It was locked. As she turned hopelessly away, she saw that the other woman was directly behind her, and was, in her turn, awaiting the mad animal's onslaught, but calmly, a tiny revolver in her hand.

"Shoot!" screamed Helen. "Why don't you shoot?" The little gun spoke, and the dog spun around, snarling and yelping. The woman fired several times more before it lay still, and then remarked, calmly, as she "broke" the weapon and ejected the shells:

"The calibre is too small to be good for much."

Helen sank down upon the steps.

"How well you shoot!" she gasped. Her eyes were on the gray bundle whose death agonies had thrust it almost to her feet. The men had run up and were talking excitedly, but after a word with them the woman turned to Helen.

"You must come in for a moment and recover yourself," she said, and led her inside.

It was a cosey room in which the girl found herself—more than that—luxurious. There was a piano with scattered music, and many of the pretty, feminine things that Helen had not seen since leaving home. The hostess had stepped behind some curtains for an instant and was talking to her from the next room.

"That is the third mad dog I have seen this month. Hydrophobia is becoming a habit in this neighborhood." She returned, bearing a tiny silver tray with decanter and glasses.

"You're all unstrung, but this brandy will help you—if you don't object to a swallow of it. Then come right in here and lie down for a moment and you'll be all right." She spoke with such genuine kindness and sympathy that Helen flashed a grateful glance at her. She was tall, slender, and with a peculiar undulating suggestion in her movements, as though she had been bred to the clinging folds of silken garments. Helen watched the charm of her smile, the friendly solicitude of her expression, and felt her heart warm towards this one kind woman in Nome.

"You're very good," she answered; "but I'm all right now. I was badly frightened. It was wonderful, your saving me." She followed the other's graceful motion as she placed her burden on the table, and in doing so gazed squarely at a photograph of Roy Glenister.

"Oh—!" Helen exclaimed, then paused as it flashed over her who this girl was. She looked at her quickly. Yes, probably men would consider the woman beautiful, with that smile. The revelation came with a shock, and she arose, trying to mask her confusion.

"Thank you so much for your kindness. I'm quite myself now and I must go."

Her change of face could not escape the quick perceptions of one schooled by experience in the slights of her sex. Times without number Cherry Malotte had marked that subtle, scornful change in other women, and reviled herself for heeding it. But in some way this girl's manner hurt her worst of all. She betrayed no sign, however, save a widening of the eyes and a certain fixity of smile as she answered:

"I wish you would stay until you are rested, Miss—" She paused with out-stretched hand.

"Chester. My name is Helen Chester. I'm Judge Stillman's niece," hurried the other, in embarrassment.

Cherry Malotte withdrew her proffered hand and her face grew hard and hateful.

"Oh! So you are Miss Chester—and I—saved you!" She laughed harshly.

Helen strove for calmness. "I'm sorry you feel that way," she said, coolly. "I appreciate your service to me." She moved towards the door.

"Wait a moment. I want to talk to you." Then, as Helen paid no heed, the woman burst out, bitterly: "Oh, don't be afraid! I know you are committing an unpardonable sin by talking to me, but no one will see you, and in your code the crime lies in being discovered. Therefore, you're quite safe. That's what makes me an outcast—I was found out. I want you to know, however, that, bad as I am, I'm better than you, for I'm loyal to those that like me, and I don't betray my friends."

"I don't pretend to understand you," said Helen, coldly.

"Oh yes, you do! Don't assume such innocence. Of course it's your role, but you can't play it with me." She stepped in front of her visitor, placing her back against the door, while her face was bitter and mocking. "The little service I did you just now entitles me to a privilege, I suppose, and I'm going to take advantage of it to tell you how badly your mask fits. Dreadfully rude of me, isn't it? You're in with a fine lot of crooks, and I admire the way you've done your share of the dirty work, but when you assume these scandalized, supervirtuous airs it offends me."

"Let me out!"

"I've done bad things," Cherry continued, unheedingly, "but I was forced into them, usually, and I never, deliberately, tried to wreck a man's life just for his money."

"What do you mean by saying that I have betrayed my friends and wrecked anybody's life?" Helen demanded, hotly.

"Bah! I had you sized up at the start, but Roy couldn't see it. Then Struve told me what I hadn't guessed. A bottle of wine, a woman, and that fool will tell all he knows. It's a great game McNamara's playing and he did well to get you in on it, for you're clever, your nerve is good, and your make-up is great for the part. I ought to know, for I've turned a few tricks myself. You'll pardon this little burst of feeling—professional pique. I'm jealous of your ability, that's all. However, now that you realize we're in the same class, don't look down on me hereafter." She opened the door and bowed her guest out with elaborate mockery.

Helen was too bewildered and humiliated to make much out of this vicious and incoherent attack except the fact that Cherry Malotte accused her of a part in this conspiracy which every one seemed to believe existed. Here again was that hint of corruption which she encountered on all sides. This might be merely a woman's jealousy- -and yet she said Struve had told her all about it—that a bottle of wine and a pretty face would make the lawyer disclose everything. She could believe it from what she knew and had heard of him. The feeling that she was groping in the dark, that she was wrapped in a mysterious woof of secrecy, came over her again as it had so often of late. If Struve talked to that other woman, why wouldn't he talk to her? She paused, changing her direction towards Front Street, revolving rapidly in her mind as she went her course of action. Cherry Malotte believed her to be an actress. Very well—she would prove her judgment right.

She found Struve busy in his private office, but he leaped to his feet on her entrance and came forward, offering her a chair.

"Good-morning, Miss Helen. You have a fine color, considering the night you passed. The Judge told me all about the affair; and let me state that you're the pluckiest girl I know."

She smiled grimly at the thought of what made her cheeks glow, and languidly loosened the buttons of her jacket.

"I suppose you're very busy, you lawyer man?" she inquired.

"Yes—but not too busy to attend to anything you want."

"Oh, I didn't come on business," she said, lightly. "I was out walking and merely sauntered in."

"Well, I appreciate that all the more," he said, in an altered tone, twisting his chair about. "I'm more than delighted." She judged she was getting on well from the way his professionalism had dropped off.

"Yes, I get tired of talking to uncle and Mr. McNamara. They treat me as though I were a little girl."

"When do you take the fatal step?"

"What step do you mean?"

"Your marriage. When does it occur? You needn't hesitate," he added. "McNamara told we about it a month ago."

He felt his throat gingerly at the thought, but his eyes brightened when she answered, lightly:

"I think you are mistaken. He must have been joking."

For some time she led him on adroitly, talking of many things, in a way to make him wonder at her new and flippant humor. He had never dreamed she could be like this, so tantalizingly close to familiarity, and yet so maddeningly aloof and distant. He grew bolder in his speech.

"How are things going with us?" she questioned, as his warmth grew pronounced. "Uncle won't talk and Mr. McNamara is as close-mouthed as can be, lately."

He looked at her quickly. "In what respect?"

She summoned up her courage and walked past the ragged edge of uncertainty.

"Now, don't you try to keep me in short dresses, too. It's getting wearisome. I've done my part and I want to know what the rest of you are doing." She was prepared for any answer.

"What do you want to know?" he asked, cautiously.

"Everything. Don't you think I can hear what people are saying?"

"Oh, that's it! Well, don't you pay any attention to what people say."

She recognized her mistake and continued, hurriedly:

"Why shouldn't I? Aren't we all in this together? I object to being used and then discarded. I think I'm entitled to know how the scheme is working. Don't you think I can keep my mouth shut?"

"Of course," he laughed, trying to change the subject of their talk; but she arose and leaned against the desk near him, vowing that she would not leave the office without piercing some part of this mystery. His manner strengthened her suspicion that there WAS something behind it all. This dissipated, brilliant creature knew the situation thoroughly; and yet, though swayed by her efforts, he remained chained by caution. She leaned forward and smiled at him.

"You're just like the others, aren't you? You won't give me any satisfaction at all."

"Give, give, give," said Struve, cynically. "That's always the woman's cry. Give me this—give me that. Selfish sex! Why don't you offer something in return? Men are traders, women usurers. You are curious, hence miserable. I can help you, therefore I should, do it for a smile. You ask me to break my promises and risk my honor on your caprice. Well, that's woman-like, and I'll do it. I'll put myself in your power, but I won't do it gratis. No, we'll trade."

"It isn't curiosity," she denied, indignantly. "It is my due."

"No; you've heard the common talk and grown suspicious, that's all. You think I know something that will throw a new light or a new shadow on everything you have in the world, and you're worked up to such a condition that you can't take your own people's word; and, on the other hand, you can't go to strangers, so you come to me. Suppose I told you I had the papers you brought to me last spring in that safe and that they told the whole story—whether your uncle is unimpeachable or whether he deserved hanging by that mob. What would you do, eh? What would you give to see them? Well, they're there and ready to speak for themselves. If you're a woman you won't rest till you've seen them. Will you trade?"

"Yes, yes! Give them to me," she cried, eagerly, at which a wave of crimson rushed up to his eyes and he rose abruptly from his chair. He made towards her, but she retreated to the wall, pale and wide-eyed.

"Can't you see," she flung at him, "that I MUST know?"

He paused. "Of course I can, but I want a kiss to bind the bargain—to apply on account." He reached for her hand with his own hot one, but she pushed him away and slipped past him towards the door.

"Suit yourself," said he, "but if I'm not mistaken, you'll never rest till you've seen those papers. I've studied you, and I'll place a bet that you can't marry McNamara nor look your uncle in the eye till you know the truth. You might do either if you KNEW them to be crooks, but you couldn't if you only suspected it— that's the woman. When you get ready, come back; I'll show you proof, because I don't claim to be anything but what I am—Wilton Struve, bargainer of some mean ability. When they come to inscribe my headstone I hope they can carve thereon with truth, 'He got value received.'"

"You're a panther," she said, loathingly.

"Graceful and elegant brute, that," he laughed. "Affectionate and full of play, but with sharp teeth and sharper claws. To follow out the idea, which pleases me, I believe the creature owes no loyalty to its fellows and hunts alone. Now, when you've followed this conspiracy out and placed the blame where it belongs, won't you come and tell me about it? That door leads into an outer hall which opens into the street. No one will see you come or go."

As she hurried away she wondered dazedly why she had stayed to listen so long. What a monster he was! His meaning was plain, had always been so from the first day he laid eyes upon her, and he was utterly conscienceless. She had known all this; and yet, in her proud, youthful confidence, and in her need, every hour more desperate and urgent, to know the truth, she had dared risk herself with him. Withal, the man was shrewd and observant and had divined her mental condition with remarkable sagacity. She had failed with him; but the girl now knew that she could never rest till she found an answer to her questions. She MUST kill this suspicion that ate into her so. She thought tenderly of her uncle's goodness to her, clung with despairing faith to the last of her kin. The blood ties of the Chesters were close and she felt in dire need of that lost brother who was somewhere in this mysterious land—need of some one in whom ran the strain that bound her to the weak old man up yonder. There was McNamara; but how could he help her, how much did she know of him, this man who was now within the darkest shadow of her new suspicions?

Feeling almost intolerably friendless and alone, weakened both by her recent fright and by her encounter with Struve, Helen considered as calmly as her emotions would allow and decided that this was no day in which pride should figure. There were facts which it was imperative she should know, and immediately; therefore, a few minutes later, she knocked at the door of Cherry Malotte. When the girl appeared, Helen was astonished to see that she had been crying. Tears burn hottest and leave plainest trace in eyes where they come most seldom. The younger girl could not guess the tumult of emotion the other had undergone during her absence, the utter depths of self-abasement she had fathomed, for the sight of Helen and her fresh young beauty had roused in the adventuress a very tempest of bitterness and jealousy. Whether Helen Chester were guilty or innocent, how could Glenister hesitate between them? Cherry had asked herself. Now she stared at her visitor inhospitably and without sign.

"Will you let me come in?" Helen asked her. "I have something to say to you."

When they were inside, Cherry Malotte stood and gazed at her visitor with inscrutable eyes and stony face.

"It isn't easy for me to come back," Helen began, "but I felt that I had to. If you can help me, I hope you will. You said that you knew a great wrong was being done. I have suspected it, but I didn't know, and I've been afraid to doubt my own people. You said I had a part in it—that I'd betrayed my friends. Wait a moment," she hurried on, at the other's cynical smile. "Won't you tell me what you know and what you think my part has been? I've heard and seen things that make me think—oh, they make me afraid to think, and yet I can't find the TRUTH! You see, in a struggle like this, people will make all sorts of allegations, but do they KNOW, have they any proof, that my uncle has done wrong?"

"Is that all?"

"No. You said Struve told you the whole scheme. I went to him and tried to cajole the story out of him, but—" She shivered at the memory.

"What success did you have?" inquired the listener, oddly curious for all her cold dislike.

"Don't ask me. I hate to think of it."

Cherry laughed cruelly. "So, failing there, you came back to me, back for another favor from the waif. Well, Miss Helen Chester, I don't believe a word you've said and I'll tell you nothing. Go back to the uncle and the rawboned lover who sent you, and inform them that I'll speak when the time comes. They think I know too much, do they?—so they've sent you to spy? Well, I'll make a compact. You play your game and I'll play mine. Leave Glenister alone and I'll not tell on McNamara. Is it a bargain?"

"No, no, no! Can't you SEE? That's not it. All I want is the truth of this thing."

"Then go back to Struve and get it. He'll tell you; I won't. Drive your bargain with him—you're able. You've fooled better men—now, see what you can do with him."

Helen left, realizing the futility of further effort, though she felt that this woman did not really doubt her, but was scourged by jealousy till she deliberately chose this attitude.

Reaching her own house, she wrote two brief notes and called in her Jap boy from the kitchen.

"Fred, I want you to hunt up Mr. Glenister and give him this note. If you can't find him, then look for his partner and give the other to him." Fred vanished, to return in an hour with the letter for Dextry still in his hand.

"I don' catch dis feller," he explained. "Young mans say he gone, come back mebbe one, two, 'leven days."

"Did you deliver the one to Mr. Glenister?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Was there an answer?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, give it to me."

The note read:

"DEAR MISS CHESTER,—A discussion of a matter so familiar to us both as the Anvil Creek controversy would be useless. If your inclination is due to the incidents of last night, pray don't trouble yourself. We don't want your pity. I am,

"Your servant,

"ROY GLENISTER."

As she read the note, Judge Stillman entered, and it seemed to the girl that he had aged a year for every hour in the last twelve, or else the yellow afternoon light limned the sagging hollows and haggard lines of his face most pitilessly. He showed in voice and manner the nervous burden under which he labored.

"Alec has told me about your engagement, and it lifts a terrible load from me. I'm mighty glad you're going to marry him. He's a wonderful man, and he's the only one who can save us."

"What do you mean by that? What are we in danger of?" she inquired, avoiding discussion of McNamara's announcement.

"Why, that mob, of course. They'll come back. They said so. But Alec can handle the commanding officer at the post, and, thanks to him, we'll have soldiers guarding the house hereafter."

"Why—they won't hurt us—"

"Tut, tut! I know what I'm talking about. We're in worse danger now than ever, and if we don't break up those Vigilantes there'll be bloodshed—that's what. They're a menace, and they're trying to force me off the bench so they can take the law into their own hands again. That's what I want to see you about. They're planning to kill Alec and me—so he says—and we've got to act quick to prevent murder. Now, this young Glenister is one of them, and he knows who the rest are. Do you think you could get him to talk?"

"I don't think I quite understand you," said the girl, through whitening lips.

"Oh yes, you do. I want the names of the ring-leaders, so that I can jail them. You can worm it out of that fellow if you try."

Helen looked at the old man in a horror that at first was dumb. "You ask this of me?" she demanded, hoarsely, at last.

"Nonsense," he said, irritably. "This isn't any time for silly scruples. It's life or death for me, maybe, and for Alec, too." He said the last craftily, but she stormed at him:

"It's infamous! You're asking me to betray the very man who saved us not twelve hours ago. He risked his life for us."

"It isn't treachery at all, it's protection. If we don't get them, they'll get us. I wouldn't punish that young fellow, but I want the others. Come, now, you've got to do it."

But she said "No" firmly, and quietly went to her own room, where, behind the locked door, she sat for a long time staring with unseeing eyes, her hands tight clenched in her lap. At last she whispered:

"I'm afraid it's true. I'm afraid it's true."

She remained hidden during the dinner-hour, and pleaded a headache when McNamara called in the early evening. Although she had not seen him since he left her the night before, bearing her tacit promise to wed him, yet how could she meet him now with the conviction growing on her hourly that he was a master-rogue? She wrestled with the thought that he and her uncle, her own uncle who stood in the place of a father, were conspirators. And yet, at memory of the Judge's cold-blooded request that she should turn traitress, her whole being was revolted. If he could ask a thing like that, what other heartless, selfish act might he not be capable of? All the long, solitary evening she kept her room, but at last, feeling faint, slipped down-stairs in search of Fred, for she had eaten nothing since her late breakfast.

Voices reached her from the parlor, and as she came to the last step she froze there in an attitude of listening. The first sentence she heard through the close-drawn curtains banished all qualms at eavesdropping. She stood for many breathless minutes drinking in the plot that came to her plainly from within, then turned, gathered up her skirts, and tiptoed back to her room. Here she made haste madly, tearing off her house clothes and donning others.

She pressed her face to the window and noted that the night was like a close-hung velvet pall, without a star in sight. Nevertheless, she wound a heavy veil about her hat and face before she extinguished the light and stepped into the hall. Hearing McNamara's "Good-night" at the front-door, she retreated again while her uncle slowly mounted the stairs and paused before her chamber. He called her name softly, but when she did not answer continued on to his own room. When he was safely within she descended quietly, went out, and locked the front-door behind her, placing the key in her bosom. She hurried now, feeling her way through the thick gloom in a panic, while in her mind was but one frightened thought: "I'll be too late. I'll be too late."



CHAPTER XVII

THE DRIP OF WATER IN THE DARK

Even after Helen had been out for some time she could barely see sufficiently to avoid collisions. The air, weighted by a low-hung roof of clouds, was surcharged with the electric suspense of an impending storm, and seemed to sigh and tremble at the hint of power in leash. It was that pause before the conflict wherein the night laid finger upon its lips.

As the girl neared Glenister's cabin she was disappointed at seeing no light there. She stumbled towards the door, only to utter a half-strangled cry as two men stepped out of the gloom and seized her roughly. Something cold and hard was thrust violently against her cheek, forcing her head back and bruising her. She struggled and cried out.

"Hold on—it's a woman!" ejaculated the man who had pinioned her arms, loosing his hold till only a hand remained on her shoulder. The other lowered the weapon he had jammed to her face and peered closely.

"Why, Miss Chester," he said. "What are you doing here? You came near getting hurt."

"I am bound for the Wilsons', but I must have lost my way in the darkness. I think you have cut my face." She controlled her fright firmly.

"That's too bad," one said. "We mistook you for—" And the other broke in, sharply, "You'd better run along. We're waiting for some one."

Helen hastened back by the route she had come, knowing that there was still time, and that as yet her uncle's emissaries had not laid hands upon Glenister. She had overheard the Judge and McNamara plotting to drag the town with a force of deputies, seizing not only her two friends, but every man suspected of being a Vigilante. The victims were to be jailed without bond, without reason, without justice, while the mechanism of the court was to be juggled in order to hold them until fall, if necessary. They had said that the officers were already busy, so haste was a crying thing. She sped down the dark streets towards the house of Cherry Malotte, but found no light nor answer to her knock. She was distracted now, and knew not where to seek next among the thousand spots which might hide the man she wanted. What chance had she against the posse sweeping the town from end to end? There was only one; he might be at the Northern Theatre. Even so, she could not reach him, for she dared not go there herself. She thought of Fred, her Jap boy, but there was no time. Wasted moments meant failure.

Roy had once told her that he never gave up what he undertook. Very well, she would show that even a girl may possess determination. This was no time for modesty or shrinking indecision, so she pulled the veil more closely about her face and took her good name into her hands. She made rapidly towards the lighted streets which cast a skyward glare, and from which, through the breathless calm, arose the sound of carousal. Swiftly she threaded the narrow alleys in search of the theatre's rear entrance, for she dared not approach from the front. In this way she came into a part of the camp which had lain hidden from her until now, and of the existence of which she had never dreamed.

The vices of a city, however horrible, are at least draped scantily by the mantle of convention, but in a great mining-camp they stand naked and without concealment. Here there were rows upon rows of crib-like houses clustered over tortuous, ill-lighted lanes, like blow-flies swarming to an unclean feast. From within came the noise of ribaldry and debauch. Shrill laughter mingled with coarse, maudlin songs, till the clinging night reeked with abominable revelry. The girl saw painted creatures of every nationality leaning from windows or beckoning from doorways, while drunken men collided with her, barred her course, challenged her, and again and again she was forced to slip from their embraces. At last the high bulk of the theatre building loomed a short distance ahead. Panting and frightened, she tried the door with weak hands, to find it locked. From behind it rose the blare of brass and the sound of singing. She accosted a man who approached her through the narrow alley, but he had cruised from the charted course in search of adventure and was not minded to go in quest of doormen; rather, he chose to sing a chantey, to the bibulous measures of which he invited her to dance with him, so she slipped away till he had teetered past. He was some longshoreman in that particular epoch of his inebriety where life had no burden save the dissipation of wages.

Returning, she pounded on the door, possessed of the sense that the man she sought was here, till at last it was flung open, framing the silhouette of a shirt-sleeved, thick-set youth, who shouted:

"What 'n 'ell do you want to butt in for while the show's on? Go round front." She caught a glimpse of disordered scenery, and before he could slam the door in her face thrust a silver dollar into his hand, at the same time wedging herself into the opening. He pocketed the coin and the door clicked to behind her.

"Well, speak up. The act's closin'." Evidently he was the directing genius of the performance, for at that moment the chorus broke into full cry, and he said, hurriedly:

"Wait a minute. There goes the finally," and dashed away to tend his drops and switches. When the curtain was down and the principals had sought their dressing-rooms he returned.

"Do you know Mr. Glenister?" she asked.

"Sure. I seen him to-night. Come here." He led her towards the footlights, and, pulling back the edge of the curtain, allowed her to peep past him out into the dance-hall. She had never pictured a place like this, and in spite of her agitation was astonished at its gaudy elegance. The gallery was formed of a continuous row of compartments with curtained fronts, in which men and women were talking, drinking, singing. The seats on the lower floor were disappearing, and the canvas cover was rolling back, showing the polished hardwood underneath, while out through the wide folding- doors that led to the main gambling-room she heard a brass-lunged man calling the commencement of the dance. Couples glided into motion while she watched.

"I don't see him," said her guide. "You better walk out front and help yourself." He indicated the stairs which led up to the galleried boxes and the steps leading down on to the main floor, but she handed him another coin, begging him to find Glenister and bring him to her. "Hurry; hurry!" she implored.

The stage-manager gazed at her curiously, remarking, "My! You spend your money like it had been left to you. You're a regular pie-check for me. Come around any time."

She withdrew to a dark corner and waited interminably till her messenger appeared at the head of the gallery stairs and beckoned to her. As she drew near he said, "I told him there was a thousand-dollar filly flaggin' him from the stage door, but he's got a grouch an' won't stir. He's in number seven." She hesitated, at which he said, "Go on—you're in right;" then continued, reassuringly: "Say, pal, if he's your white-haired lad, you needn't start no roughhouse, 'cause he don't flirt wit' these dames none whatever. Naw! Take it from me."

She entered the door her counsellor indicated to find Roy lounging back watching the dancers. He turned inquiringly—then, as she raised her veil, leaped to his feet and jerked the curtains to.

"Helen! What are you doing here?"

"You must go away quickly," she gasped. "They're trying to arrest you."

"They! Who? Arrest me for what?"

"Voorhees and his men—for riot, or something about last night."

"Nonsense," he said. "I had no part in it. You know that."

"Yes, yes—but you're a Vigilante, and they're after you and all your friends. Your house is guarded and the town is alive with deputies. They've planned to jail you on some pretext or other and hold you indefinitely. Please go before it's too late."

"How do you know this?" he asked, gravely.

"I overheard them plotting."

"Who?"

"Uncle Arthur and Mr. McNamara." She faced him squarely as she said it, and therefore saw the light flame up in his eyes as he cried:

"And you came here to save me—came HERE at the risk of your good name?"

"Of course. I would have done the same for Dextry." The gladness died away, leaving him listless.

"Well, let them come. I'm done, I guess. I heard from Wheaton to- night. He's down and out, too—some trouble with the 'Frisco courts about jurisdiction over these cases. I don't know that it's worth while to fight any longer."

"Listen," she said. "You must go. I am sure there is a terrible wrong being done, and you and I must stop it. I have seen the truth at last, and you're in the right. Please hide for a time at least."

"Very well. If you have taken sides with us there's some hope left. Thank you for the risk you ran in warning me."

She had moved to the front of the compartment and was peering forth between the draperies when she stifled a cry.

"Too late! Too late! There they are. Don't part the curtains. They'll see you."

Pushing through the gambling-hall were Voorhees and four others, seemingly in quest of some one.

"Run down the back stairs," she breathed, and pushed him through the door. He caught and held her hand with a last word of gratitude. Then he was gone. She drew down her veil and was about to follow when the door opened and he reappeared.

"No use," he remarked, quietly. "There are three more waiting at the foot." He looked out to find that the officers had searched the crowd and were turning towards the front stairs, thus cutting off his retreat. There were but two ways down from the gallery and no outside windows from which to leap. As they had made no armed display, the presence of the officers had not interrupted the dance.

Glenister drew his revolver, while into his eyes came the dancing glitter that Helen had seen before, cold as the glint of winter sunlight.

"No, not that—for God's sake!" she shuddered, clasping his arm.

"I must for your sake, or they'll find you here, and that's worse than ruin. I'll fight it out in the corridors so that you can escape in the confusion. Wait till the firing stops and the crowd gathers." His hand was on the knob when she tore it loose, whispering hoarsely:

"They'll kill you. Wait! There's a better way. Jump." She dragged him to the front of the box and pulled aside the curtains. "It isn't high and they won't see you till it's too late. Then you can run through the crowd." He grasped her idea, and, slipping his weapon back into its holster, laid hold of the ledge before him and lowered himself down over the dancers. He swung out unhesitatingly, and almost before he had been observed had dropped into their midst. The gallery was but twice the height of a man's head from the floor, so he landed on his feet and had drawn his Colts even while the men at the stairs were shouting at him to halt.

At sight of the naked weapons there was confusion, wherein the commands of the deputies mingled with the shrieks of the women, the crash of overturned chairs, and the sound of tramping feet, as the crowd divided before Glenister and swept back against the wall in the same ominous way that a crowd in the street had once divided on the morning of Helen's arrival. The trombone player, who had sunk low in his chair with closed eyes, looked out suddenly at the disturbance, and his alarm was blown through the horn in a startled squawk. A large woman whimpered, "Don't shoot," and thrust her palms to her ears, closing her eyes tightly.

Glenister covered the deputies, from whose vicinity the by- standers surged as though from the presence of lepers.

"Hands up!" he cried, sharply, and they froze into motionless attitudes, one poised on the lowest step of the stairs, the other a pace forward. Voorhees appeared at the head of the flight and rushed down a few steps only to come abruptly into range and to assume a like rigidity, for the young man's aim shifted to him.

"I have a warrant for you," the officer cried, his voice loud in the hush.

"Keep it," said Glenister, showing his teeth in a smile in which there was no mirth. He backed diagonally across the hall, his boot-heels clicking in the silence, his eyes shifting rapidly up and down the stairs where the danger lay.

From her station Helen could see the whole tableau, all but the men on the stairs, where her vision was cut off. She saw the dance girls crouched behind their partners or leaning far out from the wall with parted lips, the men eager yet fearful, the bartender with a half-polished glass poised high. Then a quick movement across the hall suddenly diverted her absorbed attention. She saw a man rip aside the drapery of the box opposite and lean so far out that he seemed in peril of falling. He undertook to sight a weapon at Glenister, who was just passing from his view. At her first glance Helen gasped—her heart gave one fierce lunge, and she cried out.

The distance across the pit was so short that she saw his every line and lineament clearly; it was the brother she had sought these years and years. Before she knew or could check it the blood call leaped forth.

"Drury!" she cried, aloud, at which he whipped his head about, while amazement and some other emotion she could not gauge spread slowly over his features. For a long moment he stared at her without movement or sign while the drama beneath went on, then he drew back into his retreat with the dazed look of one doubting his senses, yet fearful of putting them to the test. For her part, she saw nothing except her brother vanishing slowly into the shadows as though stricken at her glance, the curtains closing before his livid face—and then pandemonium broke loose at her feet.

Glenister, holding his enemies at bay, had retreated to the double doors leading to the theatre. His coup had been executed so quickly and with such lack of turmoil that the throng outside knew nothing of it till they saw a man walk backward through the door. As he did so he reached forth and slammed the wide wings shut before his face, then turned and dashed into the press. Inside the dance-hall loud sounds arose as the officers clattered down the stairs and made after their quarry. They tore the barrier apart in time to see, far down the saloon, an eddying swirl as though some great fish were lashing through the lily-pads of a pond, and then the swinging doors closed behind Glenister.

Helen made her way from the theatre as she had come, unobserved and unobserving, but she walked in a dream. Emotions had chased each other too closely to-night to be distinguishable, so she went mechanically through the narrow alley to Front Street and thence to her home.

Glenister, meanwhile, had been swallowed up by the darkness, the night enfolding him without sign or trace. As he ran he considered what course to follow—whether to carry the call to his comrades in town or to make for the Creek and Dextry. The Vigilantes might still distrust him, and yet he owed them warning. McNamara's men were moving so swiftly that action must be speedy to forestall them. Another hour and the net would be closed, while it seemed that whichever course he chose they would snare one or the other— either the friends who remained in town, or Dex and Slapjack out in the hills. With daylight those two would return and walk unheeding into the trap, while if he bore the word to them first, then the Vigilantes would be jailed before dawn. As he drew near Cherry Malotte's house he saw a light through the drawn curtains. A heavy raindrop plashed upon his face, another followed, and then he heard the patter of falling water increasing swiftly. Before he could gain the door the storm had broken. It swept up the street with tropical violence, while a breath sighed out of the night, lifting the litter from underfoot and pelting him with flying particles. Over the roofs the wind rushed with the rising moan of a hurricane while the night grew suddenly noisy ahead of the tempest.

He entered the door without knocking, to find the girl removing her coat. Her face gladdened at sight of him, but he checked her with quick and cautious words, his speech almost drowned by the roar outside.

"Are you alone?" She nodded, and he slipped the bolt behind him, saying:

"The marshals are after me. We just had a 'run in' at the Northern, and I'm on the go. No—nothing serious yet, but they want the Vigilantes, and I must get them word. Will you help me?" He rapidly recounted the row of the last ten minutes while she nodded her quick understanding.

"You're safe here for a little while," she told him, "for the storm will check them. If they should come, there's a back door leading out from the kitchen and a side entrance yonder. In my room you'll find a French window. They can't corner you very well."

"Slapjack and Dex are out at the shaft house—you know—that quartz claim on the mountain above the Midas." He hesitated. "Will you lend me your saddle-horse? It's a black night and I may kill him."

"What about these men in town?"

"I'll warn them first, then hit for the hills."

She shook her head. "You can't do it. You can't get out there before daylight if you wait to rouse these people, and McNamara has probably telephoned the mines to send a party up to the quartz claim after Dex. He knows where the old man is as well as you do, and they'll raid him before dawn."

"I'm afraid so, but it's all I can offer. Will you give me the horse?"

"No! He's only a pony, and you'd founder him in the tundra. The mud is knee-deep. I'll go myself."

"Good Heavens, girl, in such a night! Why, it's worth your life! Listen to it! The creeks will be up and you'll have to swim. No, I can't let you."

"He's a good little horse, and he'll take me through." Then, coming close, she continued: "Oh, boy! Can't you see that I want to help? Can't you see that I—I'd DIE for you if it would do any good?" He gazed gravely into her wide blue eyes and said, awkwardly: "Yes, I know. I'm sorry things are—as they are—but you wouldn't have me lie to you, little woman?"

"No. You're the only true man I ever knew. I guess that's why I love you. And I do love you, oh, so much! I want to be good and worthy to love you, too."

She laid her face against his arm and caressed him with clinging tenderness, while the wind yelled loudly about the eaves and the windows drummed beneath the rain. His heavy brows knit themselves together as she whispered:

"I love you! I love you! I love you!" with such an agony of longing in her voice that her soft accents were sharply distinguishable above the turmoil. The growing wildness seemed a part of the woman's passion, which whipped and harried her like a willow in a blast.

"Things are fearfully jumbled," he said, finally. "And this is a bad time to talk about them. I wish they might be different. No other girl would do what you have offered to-night."

"Then why do you think of that woman?" she broke in, fiercely. "She's bad and false. She betrayed you once; she's in the play now; you've told me so yourself. Why don't you be a man and forget her?"

"I can't," he said, simply. "You're wrong, though, when you think she's bad. I found to-night that she's good and brave and honest. The part she played was played innocently, I'm sure of that, in spite of the fact that she'll marry McNamara. It was she who overheard them plotting and risked her reputation to warn me."

Cherry's face whitened, while the shadowy eagerness that had rested there died utterly. "She came into that dive alone? She did that?" He nodded, at which she stood thinking for some time, then continued: "You're honest with me, Roy, and I'll be the same with you. I'm tired of deceit, tired of everything. I tried to make you think she was bad, but in my own heart I knew differently all the time. She came here to-day and humbled herself to get the truth, humbled herself to me, and I sent her away. She suspected, but she didn't know, and when she asked for information I insulted her. That's the kind of a creature I am. I sent her back to Struve, who offered to tell her the whole story."

"What does that renegade want?"

"Can't you guess?"

"Why, I'd rather—" The young man ground his teeth, but Cherry hastened.

"You needn't worry; she won't see him again. She loathes the ground he walks on."

"And yet he's no worse than that other scoundrel. Come, girl, we have work to do; we must act, and act quickly." He gave her his message to Dextry, then she went to her room and slipped into a riding-habit. When she came out he asked: "Where is your raincoat? You'll be drenched in no time."

"I can't ride with it. I'll be thrown, anyway, and I don't want to be all bound up. Water won't hurt me."

She thrust her tiny revolver into her dress, but he took it and upon examination shook his head.

"If you need a gun you'll need a good one." He removed the belt from his own waist and buckled his Colts about her.

"But you!" she objected.

"I'll get another in ten minutes." Then, as they were leaving, he said: "One other request, Cherry. I'll be in hiding for a time, and I must get word to Miss Chester to keep watch of her uncle, for the big fight is on at last and the boys will hang him sure if they catch him. I owe her this last warning. Will you send it to her?"

"I'll do it for your sake, not for her—no, no; I don't mean that. I'll do the right thing all round. Leave it here and I'll see that she gets it to-morrow. And—Roy—be careful of yourself." Her eyes were starry and in their depths lurked neither selfishness nor jealousy now, only that mysterious glory of a woman who makes sacrifice.

Together they scurried back to the stable, and yet, in that short distance, she would have been swept from her feet had he not seized her. They blew in through the barn door, streaming and soaked by the blinding sheets that drove scythe-like ahead of the wind. He struck a light, and the pony whinnied at recognition of his mistress. She stroked the little fellow's muzzle while Glenister cinched on her saddle. Then, when she was at last mounted, she leaned forward:

"Will you kiss me once, Roy, for the last time?"

He took her rain-wet face between his hands and kissed her upon the lips as he would have saluted a little maid. As he did so, unseen by both of them, a face was pressed for an instant against the pane of glass in the stable wall.

"You're a brave girl and may God bless you," he said, extinguishing the light. He flung the door wide and she rode out into the storm. Locking the portal, he plunged back towards the house to write his hurried note, for there was much to do and scant time for its accomplishment, despite the helping hand of the hurricane. He heard the voice of Bering as it thundered on the Golden Sands, and knew that the first great storm of the fall had come. Henceforth he saw that the violence of men would rival the rising elements, for the deeds of this night would stir their passions as AEolus was rousing the hate of the sea.

He neglected to bolt the house door as he entered, but flung off his dripping coat and, seizing pad and pencil, scrawled his message. The wind screamed about the cabin, the lamp flared smokily, and Glenister felt a draught suck past him as though from an open door at his back as he wrote:

"I can't do anything more. The end has come and it has brought the hatred and bloodshed that I have been trying to prevent. I played the game according to your rules, but they forced me back to first principles in spite of myself, and now I don't know what the finish will be. To-morrow will tell. Take care of your uncle, and if you should wish to communicate with me, go to Cherry Malotte. She is a friend to both of us.

"Always your servant, ROY GLENISTER."

As he sealed this he paused, while he felt the hair on his neck rise and bristle and a chill race up his spine. His heart fluttered, then pounded onward till the blood thumped audibly at his ear-drums and he found himself swaying in rhythm to its beat. The muscles of his back cringed and rippled at the proximity of some hovering peril, and yet an irresistible feeling forbade him to turn. A sound came from close behind his chair—the drip, drip, drip of water. It was not from the eaves, nor yet from a faulty shingle. His back was to the kitchen door, through which he had come, and, although there were no mirrors before him, he felt a menacing presence as surely as though it had touched him. His ears were tuned to the finest pin-pricks of sound, so that he heard the faint, sighing "squish" of a sodden shoe upon which a weight had shifted. Still something chained him to his seat. It was as though his soul laid a restraining hand upon his body, waiting for the instant.

He let his hand seek his hip carelessly, but remembered where his gun was. Mechanically, he addressed the note in shaking characters, while behind him sounded the constant drip, drip, drip that he knew came from saturated garments. For a long moment he sat, till he heard the stealthy click of a gun-lock muffled by finger pressure. Then he set his face and slowly turned to find the Bronco Kid standing behind him as though risen from the sea, his light clothes wet and clinging, his feet centred in a spreading puddle. The dim light showed the convulsive fury of his features above the levelled weapon, whose hammer was curled back like the head of a striking adder, his eyes gleaming with frenzy. Glenister's mouth was powder dry, but his mind was leaping riotously like dust before a gale, for he divined himself to be in the deadliest peril of his life. When he spoke the calmness of his voice surprised himself.

"What's the matter, Bronco?" The Kid made no reply, and Roy repeated, "What do you want?"

"That's a hell of a question," the gambler said, hoarsely. "I want you, of course, and I've got you."

"Hold up! I am unarmed. This is your third try, and I want to know what's back of it."

"DAMN the talk!" cried the faro-dealer, moving closer till the light shone on his features, which commenced to twitch. He raised the revolver he had half lowered. "There's reason enough, and you know it."

Glenister looked him fairly between the eyes, gripping himself with firm hands to stop the tremor he felt in his bones. "You can't kill me," he said. "I am too good a man to murder. You might shoot a crook, but you can't kill a brave man when he's unarmed. You're no assassin." He remained rigid in his chair, however, moving nothing but his lips, meeting the other's look unflinchingly. The Kid hesitated an instant, while his eyes, which had been fixed with the glare of hatred, wavered a moment, betraying the faintest sign of indecision. Glenister cried out, exultantly:

"Ha! I knew it. Your neck cords quiver."

The gambler grimaced. "I can't do it. If I could, I'd have shot you before you turned. But you'll have to fight, you dog. Get up and draw."

Roy refused. "I gave Cherry my gun."

"Yes, and more too," the man gritted. "I saw it all."

Even yet Glenister had made no slightest move, realizing that a feather's weight might snap the gambler's nervous tension and bring the involuntary twitch that would put him out swifter than a whip is cracked,

"I have tried it before, but murder isn't my game." The Kid's eye caught the glint of Cherry's revolver where she had discarded it. "There's a gun—get it."

"It's no good. You'd carry the six bullets and never feel them. I don't know what this is all about, but I'll fight you whenever I'm heeled right."

"Oh, you black-hearted hound," snarled the Kid. "I want to shoot, but I'm afraid. I used to be a gentleman and I haven't lost it all, I guess. But I won't wait the next time. I'll down you on sight, so you'd better get ironed in a hurry." He backed out of the room into the semi-darkness of the kitchen, watching with lynx-like closeness the man who sat so quietly under the shaded light. He felt behind him for the outer door-knob and turned it to let in a white sheet of rain, then vanished like a storm wraith, leaving a parched-lipped man and a zigzag trail of water, which gleamed in the lamplight like a pool of blood.



CHAPTER XVIII

WHEREIN A TRAP IS BAITED

Glenister did not wait long after his visitor's departure, but extinguished the light, locked the door, and began the further adventures of this night. The storm welcomed him with suffocating violence, sucking the very breath from his lips, while the rain beat through till his flesh was cold and aching. He thought with a pang of the girl facing this tempest, going out to meet the thousand perils of the night. And it remained for him to bear his part as she bore hers, smilingly.

The last hour had added another and mysterious danger to his full measure. Could the Kid be jealous of Cherry? Surely not. Then what else?

The tornado had driven his trailers to cover, evidently, for the streets were given over to its violence, and Roy encountered no hostile sign as he was buffeted from house to house. He adventured cautiously and yet with haste, finding certain homes where the marshals had been before him peopled now only by frightened wives and children. A scattered few of the Vigilantes had been taken thus, while the warring elements had prevented their families from spreading the alarm or venturing out for succor. Those whom he was able to warn dressed hurriedly, took their rifles, and went out into the drifting night, leaving empty cabins and weeping women. The great fight was on.

Towards daylight the remnants of the Vigilantes straggled into the big blank warehouse on the sand-spit, and there beneath the smoking glare of lanterns cursed the name of McNamara. As dawn grayed the ragged eastern sky-line, Dextry and Slapjack blew in through the spindrift, bringing word from Cherry and lifting a load from Glenister's mind.

"There's a game girl," said the old miner, as he wrung out his clothes. "She was half gone when she got to us, and now she's waiting for the storm to break so that she can come back."

"It's clearing up to the east," Slapjack chattered. "D'you know, I'm gettin' so rheumatic that ice-water don't feel comfortable to me no more."

"Uriatic acid in the blood," said Dextry. "What's our next move?" he asked of his partner. "When do we hang this politician? Seems like we've got enough able-bodied piano-movers here to tie a can onto the whole outfit, push the town site of Nome off the map, and start afresh."

"I think we had better lie low and watch developments," the other cautioned. "There's no telling what may turn up during the day."

"That's right. Stranglers is like spirits—they work best in the dark."

As the day grew, the storm died, leaving ramparts of clouds hanging sullenly above the ocean's rim, while those skilled in weather prophecy foretold the coming of the equinoctial. In McNamara's office there was great stir and the coming of many men. The boss sat in his chair smoking countless cigars, his big face set in grim lines, his hard eyes peering through the pall of blue at those he questioned. He worked the wires of his machine until his dolls doubled and danced and twisted at his touch. After a gusty interview he had dismissed Voorhees with a merciless tongue- lashing, raging bitterly at the man's failure.

"You're not fit to herd sheep. Thirty men out all night and what do you get? A dozen mullet-headed miners. You bag the mud-hens and the big game runs to cover. I wanted Glenister, but you let him slip through your fingers—now it's war. What a mess you've made! If I had even ONE helper with a brain the size of a flaxseed, this game would be a gift, but you've bungled every move from the start. Bah! Put a spy in the bull-pen with those prisoners and make them talk. Offer them anything for information. Now get out!"

He called for a certain deputy and questioned him regarding the night's quest, remarking, finally:

"There's treachery somewhere. Those men were warned."

"Nobody came near Glenister's house except Miss Chester," the man replied.

"What?"

"The Judge's niece. We caught her by mistake in the dark."

Later, one of the men who had been with Voorhees at the Northern asked to see the receiver and told him:

"The chief won't believe that I saw Miss Chester in the dance-hall last night, but she was there with Glenister. She must have put him wise to our game or he wouldn't have known we were after him."

His hearer made no comment, but, when alone, rose and paced the floor with heavy tread while his face grew savage and brutal.

"So that's the game, eh? It's man to man from now on. Very well, Glenister, I'll have your life for that, and then—you'll pay, Miss Helen." He considered carefully. A plot for a plot. If he could not swap intrigue with these miners and beat them badly, he deserved to lose. Now that the girl gave herself to their cause he would use her again and see how well she answered. Public opinion would not stand too great a strain, and, although he had acted within his rights last night, he dared not go much further. Diplomacy, therefore, must serve. He must force his enemies beyond the law and into his trap. She had passed the word once; she would do so again.

He hurried to Stillman's house and stormed into the presence of the Judge. He told the story so artfully that the Judge's astonished unbelief yielded to rage and cowardice, and he sent for his niece. She came down, white and silent, having heard the loud voices. The old man berated her with shrewish fury, while McNamara stood silent. The girl listened with entire self-control until her uncle made a reference to Glenister that she found intolerable.

"Hush! I will not listen!" she cried, passionately. "I warned him because you would have sacrificed him after he had saved our lives. That is all. He is an honest man, and I am grateful to him. That is the only foundation for your insult."

McNamara, with apparent candor, broke in:

"You thought you were doing right, of course, but your action will have terrible consequences. Now we'll have riot, bloodshed, and Heaven knows what. It was to save all this that I wanted to break up their organization. A week's imprisonment would have done it, but now they're armed and belligerent and we'll have a battle to- night."

"No, no!" she cried. "There mustn't be any violence."

"There is no use trying to check them. They are rushing to their own destruction. I have learned that they plan to attack the Midas to-night, and I'll have fifty soldiers waiting for them there. It is a shame, for they are decent fellows, blinded by ignorance and misled by that young miner. This will be the blackest night the North has ever seen."

With this McNamara left the house and went in search of Voorhees, remarking to himself: "Now, Miss Helen—send your warning—the sooner the better. If I know those Vigilantes, it will set them crazy, and yet not crazy enough to attack the Midas. They will strike for me, and when they hit my poor, unguarded office, they'll think hell has moved North."

"Mr. Marshal," said he to his tool, "I want you to gather forty men quietly and to arm them with Winchesters. They must be fellows who won't faint at blood—you know the kind. Assemble them at my office after dark, one at a time, by the back way. It must be done with absolute secrecy. Now, see if you can do this one thing and not get balled up. If you fail, I'll make you answer to me."

"Why don't you get the troops?" ventured Voorhees.

"If there's one thing I want to avoid, it's soldiers, either here or at the mines. When they step in, we step out, and I'm not ready for that just yet." The receiver smiled sinisterly.

Helen meanwhile had fled to her room, and there received Glenister's note through Cherry Malotte's messenger. It rekindled her worst fears and bore out McNamara's prophecy. The more she read of it the more certain she grew that the crisis was only a question of hours, and that with darkness, Tragedy would walk the streets of Nome. The thought of the wrong already done was lost in the lonely girl's terror of the crime about to happen, for it seemed to her she had been the instrument to set these forces in motion, that she had loosed this swift-speeding avalanche of greed, hatred, and brutality. And when the crash should come—the girl shuddered. It must not be. She would shriek a warning from the house-tops even at cost of her uncle, of McNamara, and of herself. And yet she had no proof that a crime existed. Although it all lay clear in her own mind, the certainty of it arose only from her intuition. If only she were able to take a hand—if only she were not a woman. Then Cherry Malotte's words anent Struve recurred to her, "A bottle of wine and a woman's face." They brought back the lawyer's assurance that those documents she had safeguarded all through the long spring-time journey really contained the proof. If they did, then they held the power to check this impending conflict. Her uncle and the boss would not dare continue if threatened with exposure and prosecution. The more she thought of it, the more urgent seemed the necessity to prevent the battle of to-night. There was a chance here, at least, and the only one.

Adding to her mental torment was the constant vision of that face in the curtains at the Northern. It was her brother, yet what mystery shrouded this affair, also? What kept him from her? What caused him to slink away like a thief discovered? She grew dizzy and hysterical.

Struve turned in his chair as the door to his private office opened, then leaped to his feet at sight of the gray-eyed girl standing there.

"I came for the papers," she said.

"I knew you would." The blood went out of his cheeks, then surged back up to his eyes. "It's a bargain, then?"

She nodded. "Give them to me first."

He laughed unpleasantly. "What do you take me for? I'll keep my part of the bargain if you'll keep yours. But this is no place, nor time. There's riot in the air, and I'm busy preparing for to- night. Come back to-morrow when it's all over."

But it was the terror of to-night's doings that led her into his power.

"I'll never come back," she said. "It is my whim to know to-day— yes, at once."

He meditated for a time. "Then to-day it shall be. I'll shirk the fight, I'll sacrifice what shreds of duty have clung to me, because the fever for you is in my bones, and it seems to me I'd do murder for it. That's the kind of a man I am, and I have no pride in myself because of it. But I've always been that way We'll ride to the Sign of the Sled. It's a romantic little road-house ten miles from here, perched high above the Snake River trail. We'll take dinner there together."

"But the papers?"

"I'll have them with me. We'll start in an hour."

"In an hour," she echoed, lifelessly, and left him.

He chuckled grimly and seized the telephone. "Central—call the Sled road-house—seven rings on the Snake River branch. Hello! That you, Shortz? This is Struve. Anybody at the house? Good. Turn them away if they come and say that you're closed. None of your business. I'll be out about dark, so have dinner for two. Spread yourself and keep the place clear. Good-bye."

Strengthened by Glenister's note, Helen went straight to the other woman and this time was not kept waiting nor greeted with sneers, but found Cherry cloaked in a shy dignity, which she clasped tightly about herself. Under her visitor's incoherence she lost her diffidence, however, and, when Helen had finished, remarked, with decision: "Don't go with him. He's a bad man."

"But I MUST. The blood of those men will be on me if I don't stop this tragedy. If those papers tell the tale I think they do, I can call off my uncle and make McNamara give back the mines. You said Struve told you the whole scheme. Did you see the PROOF?"

"No, I have only his word, but he spoke of those documents repeatedly, saying they contained his instructions to tie up the mines in order to give a foothold for the lawsuits. He bragged that the rest of the gang were in his power and that he could land them in the penitentiary for conspiracy. That's all."

"It's the only chance," said Helen. "They are sending soldiers to the Midas to lie in ambush, and you must warn the Vigilantes." Cherry paled at this and ejaculated:

"Good Lord! Roy said he'd lead an attack to-night." The two stared at each other.

"If I succeed with Struve I can stop it all—all of this injustice and crime—everything."

"Do you realize what you're risking?" Cherry demanded. "That man is an animal. You'll have to kill him to save yourself, and he'll never give up those proofs."

"Yes, he will," said Helen, fiercely, "and I defy him to harm me. The Sign of the Sled is a public roadhouse with a landlord, a telephone, and other guests. Will you warn Mr. Glenister about the troops?"

"I will, and bless you for a brave girl. Wait a moment." Cherry took from the dresser her tiny revolver. "Don't hesitate to use this. I want you to know also that I'm sorry for what I said yesterday."

As she hurried away, Helen realized with a shock the change that the past few months had wrought in her. In truth, it was as Glenister had said, his Northland worked strangely with its denizens. What of that shrinking girl who had stepped out of the sheltered life, strong only in her untried honesty, to become a hunted, harried thing, juggling with honor and reputation, in her heart a half-formed fear that she might kill a man this night to gain her end? The elements were moulding her with irresistible hands. Roy's contact with the primitive had not roughened him more quickly than had hers.

She met her appointment with Struve, and they rode away together, he talkative and elated, she silent and icy.

Late in the afternoon the cloud banks to the eastward assumed alarming proportions. They brought with them an early nightfall, and when they broke let forth a tempest which rivalled that of the previous night. During the first of it armed men came sifting into McNamara's office from the rear and were hidden throughout the building. Whenever he descried a peculiarly desperate ruffian the boss called him aside for private instruction and gave minute description of a wide-shouldered, erect, youth in white hat and half-boots. Gradually he set his trap with the men Voorhees had raked from the slums, and when it was done smiled to himself. As he thought it over he ceased to regret the miscarriage of last night's plan, for it had served to goad his enemies to the point he desired, to the point where they would rush to their own undoing. He thought with satisfaction of the role he would play in the United States press when the sensational news of this night's adventure came out. A court official who dared to do his duty despite a lawless mob. A receiver who turned a midnight attack into a rout and shambles. That is what they would say. What if he did exceed his authority thereafter? What if there were a scandal? Who would question? As to soldiers—no, decidedly no. He wished no help of soldiers at this time.

The sight of a ship in the offing towards dark caused him some uneasiness, for, notwithstanding the assurance that the course of justice in the San Francisco courts had been clogged, he knew Bill Wheaton to be a resourceful lawyer and a determined man. Therefore, it relieved him to note the rising gale, which precluded the possibility of interference from that source. Let them come to-morrow if they would. By that time some of the mines would be ownerless and his position strengthened a hundredfold.

He telephoned the mines to throw out guards, although he reasoned that none but madmen would think of striking there in the face of the warning which he knew must have been transmitted through Helen. Putting on his rain-coat he sought Stillman.

"Bring your niece over to my place to-night. There's trouble in the air and I'm prepared for it."

"She hasn't returned from her ride yet. I'm afraid she's caught in the storm." The Judge gazed anxiously into the darkness.

During all the long day the Vigilantes lay in hiding, impatient at their idleness and wondering at the lack of effort made towards their discovery, not dreaming that McNamara had more cleverly hidden plans behind. When Cherry's note of warning came they gathered in the back room and gave voice to their opinions.

"There's only one way to clear the atmosphere," said the chairman.

"You bet," chorussed the others. "They've garrisoned the mines, so let's go through the town and make a clean job of it. Let's hang the whole outfit to one post."

This met with general approval, Glenister alone demurring. Said he: "I have reasoned it out differently, and I want you to hear me through before deciding. Last night I got word from Wheaton that the California courts are against us. He attributes it to influence, but, whatever the reason, we are cut off from all legal help either in this court or on appeal. Now, suppose we lynch these officials to-night—what do we gain? Martial law in two hours, our mines tied up for another year, and who knows what else? Maybe a corrupter court next season. Suppose, on the other hand, we fail—and somehow I feel that we will, for that boss is no fool. What then? Those of us who don't find the morgue will end in jail. You say we can't meet the soldiers. I say we can and must. We must carry this row to them. We must jump it past the courts of Alaska, past the courts of California, and up to the White House, where there's one honest man, at least. We must do something to wake up the men in Washington. We must get out of politics, for McNamara can beat us there. Although he's a strong man he can't corrupt the President. We have one shot left, and it must reach the Potomac. When Uncle Sam takes a hand we'll get a square deal, so I say let us strike at the Midas to-night and take her if we can. Some of us will go down, but what of it?"

Following this harangue, he outlined a plan which in its unique daring took away their breaths, and as he filled in detail after detail they brightened with excitement and that love of the long chance which makes gamblers of those who thread the silent valleys or tread the edge of things. His boldness stirred them and enthusiasm did the rest.

"All I want for myself," he said, "is the chance to run the big risk. It's mine by right."

Dextry spoke, breathlessly, to Slapjack in the pause which ensued:

"Ain't he a heller?"

"We'll go you," the miners chimed to a man. And the chairman added: "Let's have Glenister lead this forlorn hope. I am willing to stand or fall on his judgment." They acquiesced without a dissenting voice and with the firm hands of a natural leader the young man took control.

"Let's hurry up," said one. "It's a long 'mush' and the mud is knee-deep."

"No walking for us," said Roy. "We'll go by train."

"By train? How can we get a train?"

"Steal it," he answered, at which Dextry grinned delightedly at his loose-jointed companion, and Slapjack showed his toothless gums in answer, saying:

"He sure is."

A few more words and Glenister, accompanied by these two, slipped out into the whirling storm, and a half-hour later the rest followed. One by one the Vigilantes left, the blackness blotting them up an arm's-length from the door, till at last the big, bleak warehouse echoed hollowly to the voice of the wind and water.