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"No one understands," said the girl, and smiled mirthlessly. "Don't try to, Doctor Byrne. Go to bed, and sleep. If you can. Good night." "But you," said Byrne, following her, "are almost as ill as your father. Is there nothing I can do for you?" "You?" she asked, surprised. "No, nothing." "But there's not the slightest colour in your face. And you are trembling, Miss Cumberland!"
In a moment ten Americans were following it, after Mr. Harding had supplied Billy Byrne with a carbine, another six-shooter, and ammunition. Through the river and the cut in the barbed-wire fence, then up the face of the bluff and out across the low mesa beyond the trail led. For a mile it was distinct, and then disappeared as though the riders had separated.
Zeena did not move or look up when he entered, and after a moment he asked: "Where's Mattie?" Without lifting her eyes from the page she replied: "I presume she's getting down her trunk." The blood rushed to his face. "Getting down her trunk alone?" "Jotham Powell's down in the wood-lot, and Dan'l Byrne says he darsn't leave that horse," she returned.
After all it may have been true. The sound of knocking had been faint, elusive, reflected Byrne. Perhaps only the effect of his fancy. He asked "Who is that man?" "Her novio." They screamed pointing to the girl. "He is gone home to a village far away from here. But he will return in the morning. Her novio! And she is an orphan the child of poor Christian people.
And the mucker saw the true eyes of the woman he loved without knowing that he loved her, and he saw the plea for pity and protection in them. "Don't," whispered the girl. "Please don't, you frighten me." A week ago Billy Byrne would have laughed at such a plea. Doubtless, too, he would have struck the girl in the face for her resistance.
Pinckney had never called her by her name and she felt almost irritated at the impertinence of the phantom voice in doing so. This same irritation made her laugh when she realised it. Then the idea that Byrne might lock the hall door before she could get back drove every other thought away and she began to run, her shadow running before her over the moonlit grass.
To his resentment was added a contempt of himself. "Thanks," he said. "I think not." "Oh, all right." Stewart was rather offended. "I can't do more than give you a chance." They separated shortly after and Byrne went on alone. The snow of Sunday had turned to a fine rain which had lasted all of Monday and Tuesday.
When Billy turned his eyes back the Texan had disappeared, and by the time the former reached the doorway Grayson was halfway to the office building on the veranda of which stood the four soldiers of Villa grumbling and muttering over the absence of their prisoner of the previous evening. Billy Byrne stepped out into the open.
"But how are we to get there?" asked the girl, looking fearfully at the turbulent river. "It ain't deep," Byrne assured her. "Come ahead; I'll carry yeh acrost," and without waiting for a reply he gathered her in his arms and started down the bank.
With steady muscles and giant sinews the mucker stood by the wheel nursing the erratic wreck as no one might have supposed it was in him to do. Behind him Barbara Harding watched first Theriere and Simms, and then Byrne and the swirling waters toward which he was heading the ship.
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