Gunman's Reckoning

Fifty miles over any sort of going is a stiff march. Fifty miles uphill and down and mostly over districts where there was only a rough cow path in lieu of a road made a prodigious day's work; and certainly it was an almost incredible feat for one who professed to hate work with a consuming passion and who had looked upon an eight-mile jaunt the night before as an insuperable burden. Yet such was the distance which Donnegan had covered, and now he drove the pack mule out on the shoulder of the hill in full view of The Corner with the triangle of the Young Muddy and Christobel Rivers embracing the little town. Even the gaunt, leggy mule was tired to the dropping point, and the tough buckskin which trailed up behind went with downward head. When Louise Macon turned to him, he had reached the point where he swung his head around first and then grudgingly followed the movement with his body. The girl was tired, also, in spite of the fact that she had covered every inch of the distance in the saddle. There was that violet shade of weariness under her eyes and her shoulders slumped forward. Only Donnegan, the hater of labor, was fresh.

They had started in the first dusk of the coming day; it was now the yellow time of the slant afternoon sunlight; between these two points there had been a body of steady plodding. The girl had looked askance at that gaunt form of Donnegan's when they began; but before three hours, seeing that the spring never left his step nor the swinging rhythm his stride, she began to wonder. This afternoon, nothing he did could have surprised her. From the moment he entered the house the night before he had been a mystery. Till her death day she would not forget the fire with which he had stared up at her from the foot of the stairs. But when he came out of her father's room—not cowed and whipped as most men left it—he had looked at her with a veiled glance, and since that moment there had always been a mist of indifference over his eyes when he looked at her.

In the beginning of that day's march all she knew was that her father trusted her to this stranger, Donnegan, to take her to The Corner, where he was to find Jack Landis and bring Jack back to his old allegiance and find what he was doing with his time and his money. It was a quite natural proceeding, for Jack was a wild sort, and he was probably gambling away all the gold that was dug in his mines. It was perfectly natural throughout, except that she should have been trusted so entirely to a stranger. That was a remarkable thing, but, then, her father was a remarkable man, and it was not the first time that his actions had been inscrutable, whether concerning her or the affairs of other people. She had heard men come into their house cursing Colonel Macon with death in their faces; she had seen them sneak out after a soft-voiced interview and never appear again. In her eyes, her father was invincible, all-powerful. When she thought of superlatives, she thought of him. Her conception of mystery was the smile of the colonel, and her conception of tenderness was bounded by the gentle voice of the same man. Therefore, it was entirely sufficient to her that the colonel had said: "Go, and trust everything to Donnegan. He has the power to command you and you must obey—until Jack comes back to you."

That was odd, for, as far as she knew, Jack had never left her. But she had early discarded any will to question her father. Curiosity was a thing which the fat man hated above all else.

Therefore, it was really not strange to her that throughout the journey her guide did not speak half a dozen words to her. Once or twice when she attempted to open the conversation he had replied with crushing monosyllables, and there was an end. For the rest, he was always swinging down the trail ahead of her at a steady, unchanging, rapid stride. Uphill and down it never varied. And so they came out upon the shoulder of the hill and saw the storm center of The Corner. They were in the hills behind the town; two miles would bring them into it. And now Donnegan came back to her from the mule. He took off his hat and shook the dust away; he brushed a hand across his face. He was still unshaven. The red stubble made him hideous, and the dust and perspiration covered his face as with a mask. Only his eyes were rimmed with white skin.

"You'd better get off the horse, here," said Donnegan.

He held her stirrup, and she obeyed without a word.

"Sit down."

She sat down on the flat-topped boulder which he designated, and, looking up, observed the first sign of emotion in his face. He was frowning, and his face was drawn a little.

"You are tired," he stated.

"A little."

"You are tired," said the wanderer in a tone that implied dislike of any denial. Therefore she made no answer. "I'm going down into the town to look things over. I don't want to parade you through the streets until I know where Landis is to be found and how he'll receive you. The Corner is a wild town; you understand?"

"Yes," she said blankly, and noted nervously that the reply did not please him. He actually scowled at her.

"You'll be all right here. I'll leave the pack mule with you; if anything should happen—but nothing is going to happen, I'll be back in an hour or so. There's a pool of water. You can get a cold drink there and wash up if you want to while I'm gone. But don't go to sleep!"

"Why not?"

"A place like this is sure to have a lot of stragglers hunting around it. Bad characters. You understand?"

She could not understand why he should make a mystery of it; but then, he was almost as strange as her father. His careful English and his ragged clothes were typical of him inside and out.

"You have a gun there in your holster. Can you use it?"

"Yes."

"Try it."

It was a thirty-two, a woman's light weapon. She took it out and balanced it in her hand.

"The blue rock down the hillside. Let me see you chip it."

Her hand went up, and without pausing to sight along the barrel, she fired; fire flew from the rock, and there appeared a white, small scar. Donnegan sighed with relief.

"If you squeezed the butt rather than pulled the trigger," he commented, "you would have made a bull's-eye that time. Now, I don't mean that in any likelihood you'll have to defend yourself. I simply want you to be aware that there's plenty of trouble around The Corner."

"Yes," said the girl.

"You're not afraid?"

"Oh, no."

Donnegan settled his hat a little more firmly upon his head. He had been on the verge of attributing her gentleness to a blank, stupid mind; he began to realize that there was metal under the surface. He felt that some of the qualities of the father were echoed faintly, and at a distance, in the child. In a way, she made him think of an unawakened creature. When she was roused, if the time ever came, it might be that her eye could become a thing alternately of fire and ice, and her voice might carry with a ring.

"This business has to be gotten through quickly," he went on. "One meeting with Jack Landis will be enough."

She wondered why he set his jaw when he said this, but he was wondering how deeply the colonel's ward had fallen into the clutches of Nelly Lebrun. If that first meeting did not bring Landis to his senses, what followed? One of two things. Either the girl must stay on in The Corner and try her hand with her fiancé again, or else the final brutal suggestion of the colonel must be followed; he must kill Landis. It was a cold-blooded suggestion, but Donnegan was a cold-blooded man. As he looked at the girl, where she sat on the boulder, he knew definitely, first and last, that he loved her, and that he would never again love any other woman. Every instinct drew him toward the necessity of destroying Landis. There was his stumbling block. But what if she truly loved Landis?

He would have to wait in order to find that out. And as he stood there with the sun shining on the red stubble on his face he made a resolution the more profound because it was formed in silence: if she truly loved Landis he would serve her hand and foot until she had her will.

But all he said was simply: "I shall be back before it's dark."

"I shall be comfortable here," replied the girl, and smiled farewell at him.

And while Donnegan went down the slope full of darkness he thought of that smile.

The Corner spread more clearly before him with every step he made. It was a type of the gold-rush town. Of course most of the dwellings were tents—dog tents many of them; but there was a surprising sprinkling of wooden shacks, some of them of considerable size. Beginning at the very edge of the town and spread over the sand flats were the mines and the black sprinkling of laborers. And the town itself was roughly jumbled around one street. Over to the left the main road into The Corner crossed the wide, shallow ford of the Young Muddy River and up this road he saw half a dozen wagons coming, wagons of all sizes; but nothing went out of The Corner. People who came stayed there, it seemed.

He dropped over the lower hills, and the voice of the gold town rose to him. It was a murmur like that of an army preparing for battle. Now and then a blast exploded, for what purpose he could not imagine in this school of mining. But as a rule the sounds were subdued by the distance. He caught the muttering of many voices, in which laughter and shouts were brought to the level of a whisper at close hand; and through all this there was a persistent clangor of metallic sounds. No doubt from the blacksmith shops where picks and other implements were made or sharpened and all sorts of repairing carried on. But the predominant tone of the voice of The Corner was this persistent ringing of metal. It suggested to Donnegan that here was a town filled with men of iron and all the gentler parts of their natures forgotten. An odd place to bring such a woman as Lou Macon, surely!

He reached the level, and entered the town.

Hunting for news, he went naturally to the news emporium which took the place of the daily paper—namely, he went to the saloons. But on the way he ran through a liberal cross-section of The Corner's populace. First of all, the tents and the ruder shacks. He saw little sheet-iron stoves with the tin dishes piled, unwashed, upon the tops of them when the miners rushed back to their work; broken handles of picks and shovels; worn-out shirts and overalls lay where they had been tossed; here was a flat strip of canvas supported by four four-foot poles and without shelter at the sides, and the belongings of one careless miner tumbled beneath this miserable shelter; another man had striven for some semblance of a home and he had framed a five-foot walk leading up to the closed flap of his tent with stones of a regular size. But nowhere was there a sign of life, and would not be until semidarkness brought the unwilling workers back to the tents.

Out of this district he passed quickly onto the main street, and here there was a different atmosphere. The first thing he saw was a man dressed as a cowpuncher from belt to spurs—spurs on a miner—but above the waist he blossomed in a frock coat and a silk hat. Around the coat he had fastened his belt, and the shirt beneath the coat was common flannel, open at the throat. He walked, or rather staggered, on the arm of an equally strange companion who was arrayed in a white silk shirt, white flannel trousers, white dancing pumps, and a vast sombrero! But as if this was not sufficient protection for his head, he carried a parasol of the most brilliant green silk and twirled it above his head. The two held a wavering course and went blindly past Donnegan.

It was sufficiently clear that the storekeeper had followed the gold.

He noted a cowboy sitting in his saddle while he rolled a cigarette. Obviously he had come in to look things over rather than to share in the mining, and he made the one sane, critical note in the carnival of noise and color. Donnegan began to pass stores. There was the jeweler's; the gent's furnishing; a real estate office—what could real estate be doing on the Young Muddy's desert? Here was the pawnshop, the windows of which were already packed. The blacksmith had a great establishment, and the roar of the anvils never died away; feed and grain and a dozen lunch-counter restaurants. All this had come to The Corner within six weeks.

Liquor seemed to be plentiful, too. In the entire length of the street he hardly saw a sober man, except the cowboy. Half a dozen in one group pitched silver dollars at a mark. But he was in the saloon district now, and dominant among the rest was the big, unpainted front of a building before which hung an enormous sign:

LEBRUN'S JOY EMPORIUM

Donnegan turned in under the sign.

It was one big room. The bar stretched completely around two sides of it. The floor was dirt, but packed to the hardness of wood. The low roof was supported by a scattering of wooden pillars, and across the floor the gaming tables were spread. At that vast bar not ten men were drinking now; at the crowding tables there were not half a dozen players; yet behind the bar stood a dozen tenders ready to meet the evening rush from the mines. And at the tables waited an equal number of the professional gamblers of the house.

From the door Donnegan observed these things with one sweeping glance, and then proceeded to transform himself. One jerk at the visor of his cap brought it down over his eyes and covered his face with shadow; a single shrug bunched the ragged coat high around his shoulders, and the shoulders themselves he allowed to drop forward. With his hands in his pockets he glided slowly across the room toward the bar, for all the world a picture of the guttersnipe who had been kicked from pillar to post until self-respect is dead in him. And pausing in his advance, he leaned against one of the pillars and looked hungrily toward the bar.

He was immediately hailed from behind the bar with: "Hey, you. No tramps in here. Pay and stay in Lebrun's!"

The command brought an immediate protest. A big fellow stepped from the bar, his sombrero pushed to the back of his head, his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow away from vast hairy forearms. One of his long arms swept out and brought Donnegan to the bar.

"I ain't no prophet," declared the giant, "but I can spot a man that's dry. What'll you have, bud?" And to the bartender he added: "Leave him be, pardner, unless you're all set for considerable noise in here."

"Long as his drinks are paid for," muttered the bartender, "here he stays. But these floaters do make me tired!"

He jabbed the bottle across the bar at Donnegan and spun a glass noisily at him, and the "floater" observed the angry bartender with a frightened side glance, and then poured his drink gingerly. When the glass was half full he hesitated and sought the face of the bartender again, for permission to go on.

"Fill her up!" commanded the giant. "Fill her up, lad, and drink hearty."

"I never yet," observed the bartender darkly, "seen a beggar that wasn't a hog."

At this Donnegan's protector shifted his belt so that the holster came a little more forward on his thigh.

"Son," he said, "how long you been in these parts?"

"Long enough," declared the other, and lowered his black brows. "Long enough to be sick of it."

"Maybe, maybe," returned the cowpuncher-miner, "meantime you tie to this. We got queer ways out here. When a gent drinks with us he's our friend. This lad here is my pardner, just now. If I was him I would of knocked your head off before now for what you've said—"

"I don't want no trouble," Donnegan said whiningly.

At this the bartender chuckled, and the miner showed his teeth in his disgust.

"Every gent has got his own way," he said sourly. "But while you drink with Hal Stern you drink with your chin up, bud. And don't forget it. And them that tries to run over you got to run over me."

Saying this, he laid his large left hand on the bar and leaned a little toward the bartender, but his right hand remained hanging loosely at his side. It was near the holster, as Donnegan noticed. And the bartender, having met the boring glance of the big man for a moment, turned surlily away. The giant looked to Donnegan and observed: "Know a good definition of the word, skunk?"

"Nope," said Donnegan, brightening now that the stern eye, of the bartender was turned away.

"Here's one that might do. A skunk is a critter that bites when your back is turned and runs when you look it in the eye. Here's how!"

He drained his own glass, and Donnegan dexterously followed the example.

"And what might you be doing around these parts?" asked the big man, veiling his contempt under a mild geniality.

"Me? Oh, nothing."

"Looking for a job, eh?"

Donnegan shrugged.

"Work ain't my line," he confided.

"H'm-m-m," said Hal Stern. "Well, you don't make no bones about it."

"But just now," continued Donnegan, "I thought maybe I'd pick up some sort of a job for a while." He looked ruefully at the palms of his hands which were as tender as the hands of a woman. "Heard a fellow say that Jack Landis was a good sort to work for—didn't rush his men none. They said I might find him here."

The big man grunted.

"Too early for him. He don't circulate around much till the sun goes down. Kind of hard on his skin, the sun, maybe. So you're going to work for him?"

"I was figuring on it."

"Well, tie to this, bud. If you work for him you won't have him over you."

"No?"

"No, you'll have"—he glanced a little uneasily around him—"Lord Nick."

"Who's he?"

"Who's he?" The big man started in astonishment. "Sufferin' catamounts! Who is he?" He laughed in a disagreeable manner. "Well, son, you'll find out, right enough!"

"The way you talk, he don't sound none too good."

Hal Stern grew anxious. "The way I talk? Have I said anything agin' him? Not a word! He's—he's—well, there ain't ever been trouble between us and there never ain't going to be." He flushed and looked steadily at Donnegan. "Maybe he sent you to talk to me?" he asked coldly.

But Donnegan's eyes took on a childish wideness.

"Why, I never seen him," he declared. Hall Stern allowed the muscles of his face to relax. "All right," he said, "they's no harm done. But Lord Nick is a name that ain't handled none too free in these here parts. Remember that!"

"But how," pondered Donnegan, "can I be working for Lord Nick when I sign up to work under Jack Landis?"

"I'll tell you how. Nick and Lebrun work together. Split profits. And Nelly Lebrun works Landis for his dust. So the stuff goes in a circle—Landis to Nelly to Lebrun to Nick. That clear?"

"I don't quite see it," murmured Donnegan.

"I didn't think you would," declared the other, and snorted his disgust. "But that's all I'm going to say. Here come the boys—and dead dry!"

For the afternoon was verging upon evening, and the first drift of laborers from the mines was pouring into The Corner. One thing at least was clear to Donnegan: that everyone knew how infatuated Landis had become with Nelly Lebrun and that Landis had not built up an extraordinarily good name for himself.

By the time absolute darkness had set in, Donnegan, in the new role of lady's chaperon, sat before a dying fire with Louise Macon beside him. He had easily seen from his talk with Stern that Landis was a public figure, whether from the richness of his claims or his relations with Lord Nick and Lebrun, or because of all these things; but as a public figure it would be impossible to see him alone in his own tent, and unless Louise could meet him alone half her power over him—supposing that she still retained any—would be lost. Better by far that Landis should come to her than that she should come to him, so Donnegan had rented two tents by the day at an outrageous figure from the enterprising real estate company of The Corner and to this new home he brought the girl.

She accepted the arrangement with surprising equanimity. It seemed that her father's training had eliminated from her mind any questioning of the motives of others. She became even cheerful as she set about arranging the pack which Donnegan put in her tent. Afterward she cooked their supper over the fire which he built for her. Never was there such a quick house-settling. And by the time it was absolutely dark they had washed the dishes and sat before Lou's tent looking over the night lights of The Corner and hearing the voice of its Great White Way opening.

She had not even asked why he did not bring her straight to Jack Landis. She had looked into Donnegan's tent, furnished with a single blanket and his canvas kit, and had offered to share her pack with him. And now they sat side by side before the tent and still she asked no questions about what was to come.

Her silence was to Donnegan the dropping of the water upon the hard rock. He was crumbling under it, and a wild hatred for the colonel rose in him. No doubt that spirit of evil had foreseen all this; and he knew that every moment spent with the girl would drive Donnegan on closer to the accomplishment of the colonel's great purpose—the death of Jack Landis. For the colonel, as Jack's next of kin, would take over all his mining interests and free them at a stroke from the silent partnership which apparently existed with Lord Nick and Lester. One bullet would do all this: and with Jack dead, who else stood close to the girl? It was only necessary that she should not know who sped the bullet home.

A horrible fancy grew up in Donnegan, as he sat there, that between him and the girl lay a dead body.

He was glad when the time came and he could tell her that he was going down to The Corner to find Jack Landis and bring him to her. She rose to watch him go and he heard her say "Come soon!"

It shocked Donnegan into realization that for all her calm exterior she was perfectly aware of the danger of her position in the wild mining camp. She must know, also, that her reputation would be compromised; yet never once had she winced, and Donnegan was filled with wonder as he went down the hill toward the camp which was spread beneath him; for their tents were a little detached from the main body of the town. Behind her gentle eyes, he now felt, and under the softness of her voice, there was the same iron nerve that was in her father. Her hatred could be a deathless passion, and her love also; and the great question to be answered now was, did she truly love Jack Landis?

The Corner at night was like a scene at a circus. There was the same rush of people, the same irregular flush of lights, the same glimmer of lanterns through canvas, the same air of impermanence. Once, in one of those hushes which will fall upon every crowd, he heard a coyote wailing sharply and far away, as though the desert had sent out this voice to mock at The Corner and all it contained.

He had only to ask once to discover where Landis was: Milligan's dance hall. Before Milligan's place a bonfire burned from the beginning of dusk to the coming of day; and until the time when that fire was quenched with buckets of water, it was a sign to all that the merriment was under way in the dance hall. If Lebrun's was the sun of the amusement world in The Corner, Milligan's was the moon. Everybody who had money to lose went to Lebrun's. Every one who was out for gayety went to Milligan's. Milligan was a plunger. He had brought up an orchestra which demanded fifteen dollars a day and he paid them that and more. He not only was able to do this, but he established a bar at the entrance from which all who entered were served with a free drink. The entrance, also, was not subject to charge. The initial drink at the door was spiced to encourage thirst, so Milligan made money as fast, and far more easily, than if he had been digging it out of the ground.

To the door of this pleasure emporium came Donnegan. He had transformed himself into the ragged hobo by the jerking down of his cap again, and the hunching of his shoulders. And shrinking past the bar with a hungry sidewise glance, as one who did not dare present himself for free liquor, he entered Milligan's.

That is, he had put his foot across the threshold when he was caught roughly by the shoulder and dragged to one side. He found himself looking up into the face of a strapping fellow who served Milligan as bouncer. Milligan had an eye for color. Andy Lewis was tolerably well known as a fighting man of parts, who not only wore two guns but could use them both at once, which is much more difficult than is generally understood. But far more than for his fighting parts Milligan hired his bouncer for the sake of his face. It was a countenance made to discourage trouble makers. A mule had kicked Lewis in the chin, and a great white welt deformed his lower lip. Scars of smallpox added to his decorative effect, and he had those extremely bushy brows which for some reason are generally considered to denote ferocity. Now, Donnegan was not above middle height at best, and in his present shrinking attitude he found himself looking up a full head into the formidable face of the bouncer.

"And what are you doing in here?" asked the genial Andy. "Don't you know this joint is for white folks?"

"I ain't colored," murmured Donnegan.

"You took considerable yaller to me," declared Lewis. He straightway chuckled, and his own keen appreciation of his wit softened his expression. "What you want?"

Donnegan shivered under his rags.

"I want to see Jack Landis," he said.

It had a wonderful effect upon the doorkeeper. Donnegan found that the very name of Landis was a charm of power in The Corner.

"You want to see him?" he queried in amazement. "You?"

He looked Donnegan over again, and then grinned broadly, as if in anticipation. "Well, go ahead. There he sits—no, he's dancing."

The music was in full swing; it was chiefly brass; but now and then, in softer moments, one could hear a violin squeaking uncertainly. At least it went along with a marked, regular rhythm, and the dancers swirled industriously around the floor. A very gay crowd; color was apparently appreciated in The Corner. And Donnegan, standing modestly out of sight behind a pillar until the dance ended, noted twenty phases of life in twenty faces. And Donnegan saw the flushes of liquor, and heard the loud voices of happy fellows who had made their "strikes"; but in all that brilliant crew he had no trouble in picking out Jack Landis and Nelly Lebrun.

They danced together, and where they passed, the others steered a little off so as to give them room on the dance floor, as if the men feared that they might cross the formidable Landis, and as if the women feared to be brought into too close comparison with Nelly Lebrun. She was, indeed, a brilliant figure. She had eyes of the Creole duskiness, a delicate olive skin, with a pastel coloring. The hand on the shoulder of Landis was a thing of fairy beauty. And her eyes had that peculiar quality of seeming to see everything, and rest on every face particularly. So that, as she whirled toward Donnegan, he winced, feeling that she had found him out among the shadows.

She had a glorious partner to set her off. And Donnegan saw bitterly why Lou Macon could love him. Height without clumsiness, bulk and a light foot at once, a fine head, well poised, blond hair and a Grecian profile—such was Jack Landis. He wore a vest of fawn skin; his boots were black in the foot and finished with the softest red leather for the leg. And he had yellow buckskin trousers, laced in a Mexican fashion with silver at the sides; a narrow belt, a long, red silk handkerchief flying from behind his neck in cowboy fashion. So much flashing splendor, even in that gay assembly, would have been childishly conspicuous on another man. But in big Jack Landis there was patently a great deal of the unaffected child. He was having a glorious time on this evening, and his eye roved the room challenging admiration in a manner that was amusing rather than offensive. He was so overflowingly proud of having the prettiest girl in The Corner upon his arm and so conscious of being himself probably the finest-looking man that he escaped conceit, it might almost be said, by his very excess of it.

Upon this splendid individual, then, the obscure Donnegan bent his gaze. He saw the dancers pause and scatter as the music ended, saw them drift to the tables along the edges of the room, saw the scurry of waiters hurrying drinks up in the interval, saw Nelly Lebrun sip a lemonade, saw Jack Landis toss off something stronger. And then Donnegan skirted around the room and came to the table of Jack Landis at the very moment when the latter was tossing a gold piece to the waiter and giving a new order.

Prodigal sons in the distance of thought are apt to be both silly: and disgusting, but at close hand they usually dazzle the eye. Even the cold brain of Donnegan was daunted a little as he drew near.

He came behind the chair of the tall master of The Corner, and while Nelly Lebrun stopped her glass halfway to her lips and stared at the ragged stranger, Donnegan was whispering in the ear of Jack Landis: "I've got to see you alone."

Landis turned his head slowly and his eye darkened a little as he met the reddish, unshaven face of the stranger. Then, with a careless shrug of distaste, he drew out a few coins and poured them into Donnegan's palm; the latter pocketed them.

"Lou Macon," said Donnegan.

Jack Landis rose from his chair, and it was not until he stood so close to Donnegan that the latter realized the truly Herculean proportions of the young fellow. He bowed his excuses to Nelly Lebrun, not without grace of manner, and then huddled Donnegan into a corner with a wave of his vast arm.

"Now what do you want? Who are you? Who put that name in your mouth?"

"She's in The Corner," said Donnegan, and he dwelt upon the face of Jack Landis with feverish suspense. A moment later a great weight had slipped from his heart. If Lou Macon loved Landis it was beyond peradventure that Landis was not breaking his heart because of the girl. For at her name he flushed darkly, and then, that rush of color fading, he was left with a white spot in the center of each cheek.

First his glance plunged into vacancy; then it flicked over his shoulder at Nelly Lebrun and he bit his lip. Plainly, it was not the most welcome news that Jack Landis had ever heard.

"Where is she?" he asked nervously of Donnegan, and he looked over the ragged fellow again.

"I'll take you to her."

The big man swayed back and forth from foot to foot, balancing in his hesitation. "Wait a moment."

He strode to Nelly Lebrun and bent over her; Donnegan saw her eyes flash up—oh, heart of the south, what eyes of shadow and fire! Jack Landis trembled under the glance; yes, he was deeply in love with the girl. And Donnegan watched her face shade with suspicion, stiffen with cold anger, warm and soften again under the explanations of Jack Landis.

Donnegan, looking from the distance, could read everything; it is nearness that bewitches a man when he talks to a woman. When Odysseus talked to Circe, no doubt he stood on the farther side of the room!

When Landis came again, he was perspiring from the trial of fire through which he had just passed.

"Come," he ordered, and set out at a sweeping stride.

Plainly he was anxious to get this matter done with as soon as possible. As for Donnegan, he saw a man whom Landis had summoned to take his place sit down at the table with Nelly Lebrun. She was laughing with the newcomer as though nothing troubled her at all, but over his shoulder her glance probed the distance and followed Jack Landis. She wanted to see the messenger again, the man who had called her companion away; but in this it was fox challenging fox. Donnegan took note and was careful to place between him and the girl every pillar and every group of people. As far as he was concerned, her first glance must do to read and judge and remember him by.

Outside Landis shot several questions at him in swift succession; he wanted to know how the girl had happened to make the trip. Above all, what the colonel was thinking and doing and if the colonel himself had come. But Donnegan replied with monosyllables, and Landis, apparently reconciling himself to the fact that the messenger was a fool, ceased his questions. They kept close to a run all the way out of the camp and up the hillside to the two detached tents where Donnegan and the girl slept that night. A lantern burned in both the tents.

"She has made things ready for me," thought Donnegan, his heart opening. "She has kept house for me!"

He pointed out Lou's tent to his companion and the big man, with a single low word of warning, threw open the flap of the tent and strode in.

There was only the split part of a second between the rising and the fall of the canvas, but in that swift interval, Donnegan saw the girl starting up to receive Landis. Her calm was broken at last. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were starry with what? Expectancy? Love?

It stopped Donnegan like a blow in the face and turned his heart to lead; and then, shamelessly, he glided around the tent and dropped down beside it to eavesdrop. After all, there was some excuse. If she loved the man he, Donnegan, would let him live; if she did not love him, he, Donnegan, would kill him like a worthless rat under heel. That is, if he could. No wonder that the wanderer listened with heart and soul!

He missed the first greeting. It was only a jumble of exclamations, but now he heard: "But, Lou, what a wild idea. Across the mountains—with whom?"

"The man who brought you here."

"Who's he?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? He looks like a shifty little rat to me."

"He's big enough, Jack."

Such small praise was enough to set Donnegan's heart thumping.

"Besides, father told me to go with him, to trust him."

"Ah!" There was an abrupt chilling and lowering of Landis' voice. "The colonel knows him? He's one of the colonel's men?"

Plainly the colonel was to him as the rod to the child.

"Why didn't you come directly to me?"

"We thought it would be better not to."

"H'm-m. Your guide—well, what was the colonel's idea in sending you here? Heavens above, doesn't he know that a mining camp is no place for a young girl? And you haven't a sign of a chaperon, Lou! What the devil can I do? What was in his mind?"

"You haven't written for a long time."

"Good Lord! Written! Letters! Does he think I have time for letters?" The lie came smoothly enough. "Working day and night?"

Donnegan smoothed his whiskers and grinned into the night. Landis might prove better game than he had anticipated.

"He worried," said the girl, and her voice was as even as ever. "He worried, and sent me to find out if anything is wrong."

Then: "Nonsense! What is there to worry about? Lou, I'm half inclined to think that the colonel doesn't trust me!"

She did not answer. Was she reading beneath the boisterous assurance of Landis?

"One thing is clear to me—and to you, too, I hope. The first thing is to send you back in a hurry."

Still no answer.

"Lou, do you distrust me?"

At length she managed to speak, but it was with some difficulty: "There is another reason for sending me."

"Tell me."

"Can't you guess, Jack?"

"I'm not a mind reader."

"The cad," said Donnegan through his teeth.

"It's the old reason."

"Money?"

"Yes."

A shadow swept across the side of the tent; it was Landis waving his arm carelessly.

"If that's all, I can fix you up and send you back with enough to carry the colonel along. Look here—why, I have five hundred with me. Take it, Lou. There's more behind it, but the colonel mustn't think that there's as much money in the mines as people say. No idea how much living costs up here. Heavens, no! And the prices for labor! And then they shirk the job from dawn to dark. I have to watch 'em every minute, I tell you!"

He sighed noisily.

"But the end of it is, dear"—how that small word tore into the heart of Donnegan, who crouched outside—"that you must go back tomorrow morning. I'd send you tonight, if I could. As a matter of fact, I don't trust the red-haired rat who—"

The girl interrupted while Donnegan still had control of his hair-trigger temper.

"You forget, Jack. Father sent me here, but he did not tell me to come back."

At this Jack Landis burst into an enormous laughter.

"You don't mean, Lou, that you actually intend to stay on?"

"What else can I mean?"

"Of course it makes it awkward if the colonel didn't expressly tell you just what to do. I suppose he left it to my discretion, and I decide definitely that you must go back at once."

"I can't do it."

"Lou, don't you hear me saying that I'll take the responsibility? If your father blames you let him tell me—"

He broke down in the middle of his sentence and another of those uncomfortable little pauses ensued. Donnegan knew that their eyes were miserably upon each other; the man tongue-tied by his guilt; the girl wretchedly guessing at the things which lay behind her fiancé's words.

"I'm sorry you don't want me here."

"It isn't that, but—"

He apparently expected to be interrupted, but she waited coolly for him to finish the sentence, and, of course, he could not. After all, for a helpless girl she had a devilish effective way of muzzling Landis. Donnegan chuckled softly in admiration.

All at once she broke through the scene; her voice did not rise or harden, but it was filled with finality, as though she were weary of the interview.

"I'm tired out; it's been a hard ride, Jack. You go home now and look me up again any time tomorrow."

"I—Lou—I feel mighty bad about having you up here in this infernal tent, when the camp is full, and—":

"You can't lie across the entrance to my tent and guard me, Jack. Besides, I don't need you for that. The man who's with me will protect me."

"He doesn't look capable of protecting a cat!"

"My father said that in any circumstances he would be able to take care of me."

This reply seemed to overwhelm Landis.

"The colonel trusts him as far as all that?" he muttered. "Then I suppose you're safe enough. But what about comfort, Lou?"

"I've done without comfort all my life. Run along, Jack. And take this money with you. I can't have it."

"But, didn't the colonel send—"

"You can express it through to him. To me it's—not pleasant to take it."

"Why, Lou, you don't mean—"

"Good night, Jack. I don't mean anything, except that I'm tired."

The shadow swept along the wall of the tent again. Donnegan, with a shaking pulse, saw the profile of the girl and the man approach as he strove to take her in his arms and kiss her good night. And then one slender bar of shadow checked Landis.

"Not tonight."

"Lou, you aren't angry with me?"

"No. But you know I have queer ways. Just put this down as one of them. I can't explain."

There was a muffled exclamation and Landis went from the tent and strode down the hill; he was instantly lost in the night. But Donnegan, turning to the entrance flap, called softly. He was bidden to come in, and when he raised the flap he saw her sitting with her hands clasped loosely and resting upon her knees. Her lips were a little parted, and colorless; her eyes were dull with a mist; and though she rallied herself a little, the wanderer could see that she was only half-aware of him.

The face which he saw was a milestone in his life. For he had loved her jealously, fiercely before; but seeing her now, dazed, hurt, and uncomplaining, tenderness came into Donnegan. It spread to his heart with a strange pain and made his hands tremble.

All that he said was: "Is there anything you need?"

"Nothing," she replied, and he backed out and away.

But in that small interval he had turned out of the course of his gay, selfish life. If Jack Landis had hurt her like this—if she loved him so truly—then Jack Landis she should have.

There was an odd mixture of emotions in Donnegan; but he felt most nearly like the poor man from whose hand his daughter tugs back and looks wistfully, hopelessly, into the bright window at all the toys. What pain is there greater than the pain that comes to the poor man in such a time? He huddles his coat about him, for his heart is as cold as a Christmas day; and if it would make his child happy, he would pour out his heart's blood on the snow.

Such was the grief of Donnegan as he backed slowly out into the night. Though Jack Landis were fixed as high as the moon he would tear him out of his place and give him to the girl.