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But she had the same paleness, the same strained look, the same dark eyes full of haunting shadows. After Duane's realization of the change in her he watched her more, with a growing certainty that he would be sorry not to see her again. "It's likely we won't ever see each other again," he said. "That's strange to think of.
If he clung to his covert there was a chance, a merest chance, for his life. These pursuers, dogged and unflagging as they had been, were mortally afraid of him. It was his fame that made them cowards. Duane's keenness told him that at the very darkest and most perilous moment there was still a chance for him.
Only his tragedy was infinitely more terrible because he had mind enough to see his plight, his resemblance to a lonely wolf, bloody-fanged, dripping, snarling, fire-eyed in a last instinctive defiance. Mounted upon the horror of Duane's thought was a watching, listening intensity so supreme that it registered impressions which were creations of his imagination.
Duane's unrestrained laughter excited her merriment; the star-lit woodlands rang with it and the treble chiming of the sleigh-bells. "What on earth will he find to do now?" asked Duane. "He's going to see it through, he says. Isn't it fine of him? There is just a bare chance that he may discover something that those prying entomological people overlooked.
But his nonchalance, his air of finality, his authoritative assurance these to Duane's keen and practiced eyes were in significant contrast to a certain tenseness of line about his mouth and a slow paling of his olive skin. In that momentary lull Duane's scrutiny of Longstreth gathered an impression of the man's intense curiosity.
Then a ranger loomed up to reach the side of the guard. Duane heard whispering, the purport of which he could not catch. The second ranger swore under his breath. Then he turned away and started back. "Here, ranger, before you go, understand this. My visit is peaceful friendly if you'll let it be. Mind, I was asked to come here after dark." Duane's clear, penetrating voice carried far.
The sound of soft steps somewhere near distracted Duane's attention, reminded him of her peril, and now, what counted more with him, made clear the probability of being discovered in her room. "I'll have to get out of here," whispered Duane. "Wait," she replied. "Didn't you say they were hunting for you?" "They sure are," he returned, grimly. "Oh, then you mustn't go.
He could not seem to divine how mention of these things hurt Duane. Uncle Jim was childish now, and he had a great pride in his nephew. He wanted to hear of all of Duane's exile. And if there was one thing more than another that pleased him it was to talk about the bullets which Duane carried in his body. "Five bullets, ain't it?" he asked, for the hundredth time. "Five in that last scrap! By gum!
"See there, my locoed gents, how easy you'd hang the wrong man," burst out the cowboy, as he made the rope-end hiss. "You-all are a lot of wise rangers. Haw! haw!" He freed Duane and thrust the bone-handled gun back in Duane's holster. "You Abe, there. Reckon you pulled a stunt! But don't try the like again.
He was a rich rancher; he owned half of Fairdale; he was a cattle-buyer on a large scale. Floyd Lawson was his lieutenant and associate in deals. On the afternoon of the fifth day of Duane's stay in Fairdale he returned to the inn from his usual stroll, and upon entering was amazed to have a rough-looking young fellow rush by him out of the door.
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