lynette awoke, shivering. it was pitch-dark; the fire had burned out; it must be very late, as she was stiff and cold. she had been dreaming and her shivering was half a shudder of fear. her nightmare had been one of herself attacked and pursued hideously by wild animals; lions which in the fashion of dreams, changed into wolves, then into savages. she sat up, gathering her blanket about her. she heard standing breathing heavily; she could hear, now and then, his mutterings of uneasy sleep. perhaps it had been this which had awaked her? she began listening as one, startled out of slumber, inevitably does to another's incoherencies. it was hard to catch a word despite the cabin's hushed silence into which every slightest sound penetrated. the sounds were like those of a man babbling in fever. once it seemed to her that he had hardly more than whispered "girl!"
always must the mind of one who listens thus be held under the spell of another spirit winging its way among dreams; the moment is uncanny if only because it brings in such close contact the commonplace of every day and the inexplicable of dreams. in the night, in the silence, under this queer spell, her own mind groping, she stirred uneasily.
it flashed across lynette that it had not been timber-wolf's mumbling voice that had awakened her. that there had been something else, a new sound from without. she listened intently, straining her ears. there was some one or something outside! she started to her feet, though clinging to the security offered by her corner.
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the door was open; it was a mere degree less dark outside than within. as she stared into the blackness she made out vaguely the mass of trees. a black wall in a black night. some one out there? then who? babe deveril?
all along she had held tenaciously to the thought that babe deveril would come for her. perhaps he had come now; perhaps he lingered outside, not knowing positively that she was here, not knowing if standing were awake or asleep, not knowing if standing were sick of his wound or ready with rifle in hand.
her thoughts began to fly like stabs of lightning; briefly they made everything clear only to plunge her whole world of thought back into even more profound darkness. babe deveril? it might be! or it might be mexicali joe, lurking after his fashion. or it might, equally well, be taggart with gallup and that other man at his heels. by now she was certain of only one thing: there was some one out there.
she stood rigid for ten or fifteen minutes; standing had become quiet save for his heavy breathing; she strove with all senses upgathered tensely to read the riddle of the night. once she was sure of a sound outside; but the mystery of a night sound is so baffling! a man's cautious tread? or a limb stirring gently? or a bird among leaves, or a rabbit? it was so easy a matter, with her senses so freshly aroused from a nightmare of wild animals and savage pursuers, to people the night with fantastic menaces.
bruce standing was unarmed; his rifle dropped somewhere outside when he had dashed after her. she, too, was without a weapon. he had given her the big revolver; she had refused it; she had flung it angrily to the floor, near the bunk. she remembered seeing it there, almost out of sight, under the bunk....
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if it were babe deveril, she had nothing to fear. if mexicali joe, she had nothing to fear. if taggart and gallup and the other? what had she to fear from them? merely arrest, at most, and not so long ago she had been eager for that! and if some prowling animal?
"there's nothing to hurt me," she told herself, fighting to throttle down that trepidation which had leaped upon her when she first awoke with the wildly beating heart of one threatened in sleep. "if i only had that revolver now ... if it chanced to be wolf or bear or mountain-cat, one shot at it would send it scurrying. and, if a man, there is none for me to be afraid of."
she began, ever so slowly and guardedly, tiptoeing across the floor. she came to the bunk; she stooped and groped, and at last her fingers closed about the fallen revolver. she clinched it tightly and stood up, again rigid. this time she was sure of the sound which came again; a man's step, as guarded as her own had been, but betrayed by a little dry twig snapping.
again she waited, without moving, a long time. and not another sound; only standing's deep breathing. once she thought that his breathing had changed; that he, too, was awake. but after a moment she persuaded herself that she had imagined that; that he was still sleeping heavily. but no further sound outside. what a cautious man, or what a cowardly, was he out there! what did he want?
suddenly she thought of thor. how was it that thor, a dog, hence man's superior in as many matters as he was man's inferior, a thing of keenest senses, had given no sign? why had not thor stirred when she did; why had he not heard what she heard; why was he not already rushing out, growling, demanding to know what intruder lurked in such stealth at his master's door?
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had there been a ray of light in the cabin she would have had her answer; for bruce standing was sitting up, his arms were about thor, one big hand was at thor's muzzle, commanding quiet. and when standing commanded, thor obeyed.
some girls, some men ... perhaps most girls and most men ... would have remained in the protection of the four walls, resigned to uncertainty, until daybreak. of their number was not lynette brooke, a girl little given to fear and greatly moved by a desire to know! she waited as long as she could bear to wait. then, holding taggart's revolver well before her and walking with one silent footfall distanced patiently from the other, she gained the door and stepped outside. she was trembling; that she could not help. but she was determined to go on. and on she did go, cautiously, until she had gone ten steps toward the sound which she had heard. she paused, turning in all directions, ready to fire and ready to run....
"sh! come here!"
a whisper through the dark. and one man's whisper is much like another's. it could have been deveril's or taggart's or even mexicali joe's.
"who are you?" her own whisper answered him.
"is standing in there?"
"who are you?" she insisted.
there was a pause, a silence; a long silence. then:
"come with me ... just a few feet. so we won't be overheard."
she found herself frowning. was it babe deveril? she did not fancy a man's whispering; she could not imagine a man like bruce standing whispering at a moment like this! more like him, like any man who was a man, to roar out what he had to say rather than whisper in the dark. but that curiosity of hers, that
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inborn desire to know, lured her on. but under guard. she held her weapon so that it menaced the vague form so close to her and she whispered again, not realizing that she, too, whispered, but because she was under the spell of the moment.
"i'll go with you another ten steps ... count them! and i have a revolver in my hand, aimed at the middle of your body!"
"you're a game kid! dead game and i don't mind saying so!"
they had stopped; the whisper was dropped for a low-toned voice. it was not babe deveril! not mexicali joe. then taggart?
"i want to talk to you. i take it he is in there. asleep? so much the better. i'm taggart."
"well? what can i do for you, mr. taggart?"
"that gun of yours," he said. "i don't know how used you are to guns. knowing who i am you can point it down!"
"knowing who you are," she returned coolly, "i keep it just as it is! i have asked what i could do for you?"
"i've seen babe deveril. he's told me all about everything."
"babe deveril! when? where is he?"
jim taggart, had time and opportunity afforded, would have laughed at her quickened exclamation, being an evil-thoughted individual with restricted mental horizons. she appeared interested. he had his own mind of her sex and it was not high, since those of her sex with whom such as jim taggart consorted were not such as to give a man a high idea of femininity. in the words which, had he spoken his thought aloud, would have been his, taggart estimated that "he had this dame's number, street, and telephone."
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"i'll tell you about babe deveril later; and what's more, kid, i'll give you your show to throw in with him again. now i'm cutting things short; you know why. i was after him for hammering me over the head with a gun; i was on your trail for killing a man. now, since the man you killed ain't dead at all and since i've had a good talk with deveril, i'm ready to let you both go. and just to take in a man named standing."
through one of those odd tricks by which chance asserts itself at times, lynette made a discovery while taggart was talking. she had felt something underfoot—and that something turned out to be bruce standing's rifle.
... what had this lost rifle to do with matters as they stood? why all jim taggart's caution, if he were armed? but then standing had brought taggart's revolver back to the cabin with him.... what part in to-night's game was this fallen rifle to play? her thoughts had been withdrawn; so, standing so that for the present taggart could not possibly touch with his own foot that which she had stumbled on in the dark, she made him repeat what he had said.
thus she caught a free instant for thought; thus also she grasped all that he had to say and to insinuate. and at the end she answered him with a baffling, feminine:
"well?"
"i've got to talk fast!" growled taggart. "he's in there, i know. is he hurt?"
"you know that he is...."
"i don't mean that shot at gallup's ... that you gave him...."
"i did not shoot him!" she cried out hotly, sick of accusation.
taggart sneered at her, muttering threateningly:
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"you did! for i saw you! i was right there, close by...."
within the cabin bruce standing, sitting very tense and straight, nearly choking his big dog into silence, grew tenser and harder. so, taggart claimed to have seen her.... taggart was "right there, close by...."
"you say you saw me!" gasped lynette. "you!"
"i tell you this is no time for palaver," said taggart impatiently. "what do you care, so long as i agree to let you go free? and to let deveril go free along with you! i guess that means something to you, don't it? if it don't mean enough, let me show you: i can grab you right now; me, i'm not afraid of any gun any woman ever waved! and i can put you across for a good little vacation in jail. but i'm letting that go by, wanting to get my hooks in one bruce standing, good and deep. and i got just that! seeing as deveril told me what happened; how standing swooped down on you, how he beat deveril up, how he put a chain on you and dragged you away after him! if you'll step into court and swear to that.... why, kid, i got him! got him right! any jury in this country will land on him hard for doing to a woman like that. and you can tell the other things he's done to you by now, you and him all alone up here, him a brutal devil...."
illogically enough it swept over her that it was she herself, lynette, whom the man was insulting, and her finger trembled so upon the trigger that all unknowing jim taggart stood for the instant close upon the verge of the great final blackness. but, steadying herself, she managed to say:
"babe deveril told you that? that bruce standing had put a chain about me? how did he know? that was after he had gone!"
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"but," muttered taggart harshly, "he did not go so fast! he went up over a ridge and he stopped and rested, and in the dark he came back a bit and he hid and saw! anyway, it's the truth, ain't it? and i know? so he must have come back to see!"
that thought became on the instant the only thought, one to rise up and obstruct all others. deveril had seen; he had lingered, hidden in the forest land; he had watched her humiliation; he had known that bruce standing, though armed, was a man sorely wounded ... and he had not come to her then!
"where is he?" she demanded swiftly. "when did you see him? where has he gone?"
"he came just as standing, damn him, had jumped us to-night! all unawares standing took us ... when we were busy with other things. he had the drop on us and he made us let the mexico breed go. deveril was watching but he didn't have a gun and he couldn't step up and take a hand, knowing his cousin for a dead shot and a man who'd rather kill than not."
"but now," demanded lynette. "now! where is he?"
"he's a wised-up kid and i'm with him, tooth and toenail! he came up then and he said his say ... and i let him go! and he told me to look out for you and he hit the trail, dog-tired as he was, after mexicali joe! if there's gold to be had, why babe deveril means to be in on it. and me, so do i! and you, if you're on."
underfoot, all this time, lynette felt bruce standing's rifle....
there are times in life for methodical thought, other times for swift decisions, bred of impulse and instinctive urge....
she lived again through a certain pregnant crisis, saw in mind the whole scene as though some master
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artist with sweeping, bold brush had created the perfect vision anew for her, the struggle which had been hers and babe deveril's and bruce standing's, when standing, with the sun glowing red over his head, had come rushing down on them by their camp-fire. she saw his rifle ... the one she now felt underfoot!... go swirling over a pine top as he hurled from him any such advantage in fair fight as it spelled; again she watched the fight ... she saw babe deveril go up over the ridge; she saw herself, striking in fury against standing's arm, beating the rifle down....
"well?" it was taggart who spoke the brief word now. "which is it? jail for you ... or a good long spell in the pen for him?"
... and babe deveril had come this close ... she had proof of that in taggart's knowledge of the chain! ... and had gone on, following the golden lure of mexicali joe's trail!
"well?" said taggart.
"suppose i were fool enough to refuse what you ask?"
"then you'd go to jail as sure as hell! it's you or him! and i guess i know the answer."
then lynette said hurriedly:
"step back ... a little farther from the cabin. let me make sure that he is asleep! there never was a man like him.... back a few steps and wait...."
"there's no sense in that!"
"if you don't i'll scream out that you're here! then you'll never take him; you know the man he is!"
taggart mistrusted, and yet, hard-driven and urged by her voice, obeyed to the extent of drawing back a few steps. not far, yet far enough for lynette to stoop and grope and find the rifle. she caught it up and whirled and ran, ran as for her life, back to the cabin door. and she threw the rifle inside, crying out:
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"wake up, bruce standing! there's your rifle ... and here's jim taggart outside, looking for you!"
she came bursting into the cabin and full into bruce standing's arms. for he was up on his feet, both arms, despite a sore side, lifted.
"by god!" he shouted.
he let her go and sought the rifle. she was first to find it and put it into his searching hand.
"he is a contemptible coward!" she cried. "as if...."
standing had the rifle now, and thrust by her and rushed into the open doorway, thor snarling at his side; and standing's voice, lifted mightily, shouted:
"come ahead, taggart! i'm waiting and ready for you! come ahead!"
later he laughed at himself for that, and thereafter explained his laughter to lynette, saying:
"he hasn't a gun on him! i cleaned him out, all but one pocket gun, and i fancy he emptied that at me ... in the back. come—we'll have a fire!"
hastily she shut the door, lest taggart might have one shot left. standing set his rifle down against the wall; she heard the thud of the stock upon the floor. clearly he had no fear of taggart's return. he began gathering up bits of wood, kneeling to get a fire started. presently under his hands the blaze leaped up and brought detail vividly blossoming from the dark of the room; his face, white, with the most eager, shining eyes she had ever seen; her own face scarcely less pale; the homely appointments of the place. he was still on his knees at the fireplace; he threw on the last bit of wood and watched the quick flames lick at it; he swerved about, and it seemed that his eyes, no less than the inflammable wood, had caught fire as he cried out in a
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voice which startled her and in words which set her wondering:
"i told you, girl, i'd let you go scot-free ... unless! and here i bogged down like a broken-legged steer in the quicksands! but now ... now! i've got it all figured out. i don't let you go! neither to-night ..." and he was on his feet, towering over her—"or ever!"
and, as quick as thought, he was at the door and had shot a bolt home and had clicked a padlock, and, swinging about again, stood looking down at her, his eyes filled with dancing lights.
