was his boast that he never would be. Therefore when a hand dropped lightly on his shoulder he started erect from his blankets with a curse and grasped his revolver. A strong grip on his wrist paralysed his fingers. Whistling Dan leaned above him.
“Wake up,” said the latter.
“What the devil—” breathed the marshal. “You travel like a cloud shadow, Dan. You make no sound.”
“Wake up and talk to me.”
“I’m awake all right. What’s happened?”
There was a moment of silence while Dan seemed to be trying for speech.
Black Bart, at the other side of the clearing, pointed his nose at the yellow moon and wailed. He was very close, but the sound was so controlled that it seemed to come at a great distance from some wild spirit wandering between earth and heaven.
Instead of speaking Dan jumped to his feet and commenced pacing up and down, up and down, a rapid, tireless stride; at his heels the wolf slunk, with lowered head and tail. The strange fellow was in some great trouble, Calder could see, and it stirred him mightily to know that the wild man had turned to him for help. Yet he would ask no questions.
When in doubt the cattleman rolls a cigarette, and that was what Calder did. He smoked and waited. At last the inevitable came.
“How old are you, Tex?”
“Forty-four.”
“That’s a good deal. You ought to know something.”
“Maybe.”
“About women?”
“Ah!” said Calder.
“Bronchos is cut out chiefly after one pattern,” went on Dan.
“They’s chiefly jest meanness. Are women the same—jest cut after one pattern?”
“What pattern, Dan?”
“The pattern of Delilah! They ain’t no trust to be put in ’em?”
“A good many of us have found that out.”
“I thought one woman was different from the rest.”
“We all think that. Woman in particular is divine; woman in general is—hell!”
“Ay, but this one—” He stopped and set his teeth.
“What has she done?”
“She—” he hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice did not tremble; there was a deep hurt and wonder in it: “She double-crossed me!”
“When? Do you mean to say you’ve met a woman tonight out here among the willows?—Where—how——”
“Tex——!”
“Ay, Dan.”
“It’s—it’s hell!”
“It is now. But you’ll forget her! The mountains, the desert, and above all, time—they’ll cure you, my boy.”
“Not in a whole century, Tex.”
Calder waited curiously for the explanation. It came.
“Jest to think of her is like hearing music. Oh, God, Tex, what c’n I do to fight agin this here cold feelin’ at my heart?”
Dan slipped down beside the marshal and the latter dropped a sympathetic hand over the lean, brown fingers. They returned the pressure with a bone-crushing grip.
“Fight, Dan! It will make you forget her.”
“Her skin is softer’n satin, Tex.”
“Ay, but you’ll never touch it again, Dan.”
“Her eyes are deeper’n a pool at night an’ her hair is all gold like ripe corn.”
“You’ll never look into her eyes again, Dan, and you’ll never touch the gold of that hair.”
“God!”
The word was hardly more than a whisper, but it brought Black Bart leaping to his feet.
Dan spoke again: “Tex, I’m thankin’ you for listenin’ to me; I wanted to talk. Bein’ silent was burnin’ me up. There’s one thing more.”
“Fire it out, lad.”
“This evenin’ I told you I hated no man but Jim Silent.”
“Yes.”
“An’ now they’s another of his gang. Sometime—when she’s standin’ by—I’m goin’ to take him by the throat till he don’t breathe no more. Then I’ll throw him down in front of her an’ ask her if she c’n kiss the life back into his lips!”
Calder was actually shaking with excitement, but he was wise enough not to speak.
“Tex!”
“Ay, lad.”
“But when I’ve choked his damned life away——”
“Yes?”
“Ay, lad.”
“There’ll be five more that seen her shamin’ me. Tex—all hell is bustin’ loose inside me!”
For a moment Calder watched, but that stare of cold hate mastered him. He turned his head.
CHAPTER XV
THE CROSS ROADS
As Black Bart raced away in answer to Dan’s whistle, Kate recovered herself from the daze in which she stood and with a sob ran towards the willows, calling the name of Dan, but Silent sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. She cried out and struggled vainly in his grip.
“Don’t follow him, boys!” called Silent. “He’s a dog that can bite while he runs. Stand quiet, girl!”
Lee Haines caught him by the shoulder and jerked Silent around. His hand held the butt of his revolver, and his whole arm trembled with eagerness for the draw.
“Take your hand from her, Jim!” he said.
Silent met his eye with the same glare and while his left hand still held Kate by both her wrists his right dropped to his gun.
“Not when you tell me, Lee!”
“Damn you, I say let her go!”
“By God, Haines, I stand for too much from you!”
And still they did not draw, because each of them knew that if the crisis came it would mean death to them both. Bill Kilduff jumped between them and thrust them back.
He cried, “Ain’t we got enough trouble without roundin’ up work at home? Terry Jordan is shot through the arm.”
Kate tugged at the restraining hand of Silent, not in an attempt to escape, but in order to get closer to Haines.
“Was this your friendship?” she said, her voice shaking with hate and sorrow, “to bring me here as a lure for Whistling Dan? Listen to me, all of you! He’s escaped you now, and he’ll come again. Remember him, for he shan’t forget you!”
“You hear her?” said Silent to Haines.
“Is this what you want me to turn loose?”
“Silent,” said Haines, “it isn’t the girl alone you’ve double crossed. You’ve crooked me, and you’ll pay me for it sooner or later!”
“Day or night, winter or summer, I’m willing to meet you an’ fight it out. Rhinehart and Purvis, take this girl back to the clearing!”
They approached, Purvis still staring at the hand from which only a moment before his gun had been knocked by the shot of Whistling Dan. It was a thing which he could not understand—he had not yet lost a most uncomfortable sense of awe. Haines