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It was an intervention that had come between the wounded man and immediate death, and now Rowlett cursed himself for a temporizing fool who had lost his chance. He stood with feet wide apart and his magnified shadow falling gigantically across floor and wall across the bed, too, on which his intended victim lay defenseless.

Her anger had flashed into her tone and it was not yet time to let it leap so she laughed disarmingly as she read the kindling of sullen anger in his eyes and added, "I don't allow no man ter brag thet he overcome my will without no fight." Bas Rowlett roared out a laugh that dissipated his dangerously swelling temper and nodded his head. "Thet's ther fashion ter talk, gal.

Squires had come as Rowlett's spy into that house, hating Thornton with a sincerity bred of fear, but now he had grown to hate Rowlett the more bitterly of the two.

"When I gits ready ter hev ye do thet," he ruled, imperiously, "I'll let ye know. Right now hit's ther last thing I'd countenance." "I kain't no fashion make ye out," complained Sim. "Ye hired me ter do ther job an' blackguarded me fer failin'. Now ye acks like ye war paid ter pertect ther feller from peril." Rowlett scowled.

"I war thinkin', Cal," said the girl in a hushed voice, "of what would of happened ter me ef ye hedn't come. I'd be ther lonesomest body in ther mountings of Kaintuck but, thank God, ye did come." An agency for disturbing the precarious balance of peace was at work, and the mainspring of its operation was the intriguing mind of Bas Rowlett.

"An' now," he announced, "we'll ride on home an' pass ther word along thet matters stands es they stud in old Caleb's day an' time." He paused then, noting the weariness on the face of Jim Rowlett, added tentatively: "All of us, thet is ter say, save Old Jim. He's sorely tuckered out, an' I reckon ef ye invited him ter stay ther night with ye, Mr. Thornton, hit would be a kinderly charitable act."

When he straightened he was again looking into the muzzle of a drawn pistol. Rowlett had been drawing his own weapon as he lunged, but now he dropped it as if it had scalded his fingers, and once more hastily raised his hands above his head.

She had asked no questions about the paper itself because, to her, the opening of the trunk was more important, but she heard the old man explaining, unasked: "I've done paid off what I owes Bas Rowlett an' thet paper's a full receipt.

Ken hain't plum outen danger yit. He's got an enemy over thar in Kaintuck: an' when he starts back thet enemy's right like ter be watchin' ther trail thet leads home." Dorothy held his eyes steadily when she questioned him with a name, "Bas Rowlett?"

Probably that hate-blackness on the other face was for the would-be assassin and not for himself, argued Maggard. Rowlett went over and stood by the hearth, staring into the fire, his hands clenching and unclenching in spasmodic violence. This was a queer dream, mused Maggard, and more and more insistently it refused to seem a dream.