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Updated: May 26, 2025
"Stand aside, Dunwoodie," commanded Harboro harshly. "Well, wait a minute," insisted Dunwoodie. "Calm yourself, man. I want to talk to you. Fectnor's not in the saloon. He went on through and out the back way." Harboro wheeled with an almost despairing expression in his eyes. He seemed to look at nothing, now like a bird-dog that senses the nearness of the invisible quarry.
There was a voice from one of the card-tables: "Well, any man that gets Fectnor's coat is no slouch."
At length he remarked: "Fectnor, I see you've got a gun on you." "I have," was the steely response. Fectnor's narrow blue eyes became, suddenly, the most alert thing about a body which was all alertness. "So have I," said Harboro. The other's narrow eyes seemed to twinkle. His response sounded like: "The L you say!" "Yes," said Harboro.
And then she knew she had made a fatal mistake in holding that long and quiet parley with the beast that had trapped her. She had led her father, doubtless, to believe that it was an amicable talk that had been going on behind the closed door. She knew now that at the first instant of Fectnor's appearance she should have given battle and cried for help.
He added: "My wife was the woman you trapped in Little's house last night." Fectnor's mind went swiftly to the weapon in his holster; and something more than his mind, surely, since Harboro knew. Yet the man's hand had barely moved. However, he casually threw the coat he carried over his left arm, leaving his right hand free.
And from the popular attitude toward Fectnor's conduct there grew a greatly increased respect for Harboro. That, indeed, was the main outcome of the episode, so far as the town as a whole was concerned. Harboro became a somewhat looming figure. But with Sylvia ... well, with Sylvia it was different. Of course Sylvia was connected with the affair, and in only one way.
Now, looking into the adjoining room, while Fectnor's grip closed upon her wrist, she saw the front door quietly close. Her father had gone out. Sylvia climbed the hill in the dusk. A casual observer would have remarked that all was not right with her. Beneath a calm exterior something brooded.
They played at the game of love again; and old Antonia, in her place down-stairs, thought of that exchange of letters and darkly pondered. The election came and went; the voice of the people had been heard, and Maverick County had a new sheriff. In the house on the Quemado Road Fectnor's name was heard no more.
Then all her terrors were renewed by Fectnor's voice. He had sauntered to a small table near the middle of the room and sat down on the end of it, after shoving a chair in Sylvia's direction. "What's the matter with you, Sylvia?" he demanded. He scarcely seemed angry: impatient would be the word, perhaps.
She possessed the discretion of her race, of her age. The señora had been married quite a time now. Doubtless there were old friends.... And Sylvia stood alone, reading the sprawling lines which her father had written: "Fectnor's here. He wants to see you. Better come down to the house. You know he's likely to make trouble if he doesn't have his way."
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