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Updated: May 10, 2025
The moon, too, had joined in the race; with one quick glance toward it, Judith again discarded caution for haste. She must get down into the floor of the cañon before the moonlight did; she must be running before its radiance showed her out to Quinnion and Ruth. Her hands were cut and bleeding, her heart was beating wildly, already her body was sore and bruised. But these things she did not know.
Three men down before a clock could tick off as many minutes and not a single man shot. It was a place for a man like Charlie Miller with his old pick-handle. "Bud," called Carson's voice sharply, "are you all right?" "Yes," answered Lee briefly, and as he answered moved sharply to one side so that his voice might not draw a shot from Quinnion or the other men.
"I'll see you in " began Quinnion, as something of the old bluster came back to him. "Shut up!" snapped Lee. "Carson, let me have your gun." Carson, wondering, gave it. Lee dropped it on the floor at Quinnion's foot. "Pick that gun up and we'll finish what we've begun," he said coolly to Quinnion. "I won't shoot until you've got it in your hand and have straightened up. Then I'll kill you.
He shoved the swing door open with his shoulder, Carson pushed the other half back, and the two stood on the threshold, their eyes swiftly seeking Quinnion. As though their presence had been a command for silence, a sudden hush fell over the Jailbird. The accordion man drew out a last gasping note and turned black round eyes upon them.
The one man with her was masked, his eyes rather guessed at than seen through the slits of his bandanna handkerchief. He had jerked the bandage from her eyes, since blindfolded she would make such poor progress. But still he guarded his tongue. "He would speak," she thought, "but that I would recognize his voice. Trevors or Quinnion? Which?"
It was pleasant here. This cabin was a sort of home to him. Besides, he had the idea that Quinnion and Shorty might again be heard from that if Trevors was backing their play, there would be other threats offered the Blue Lake outfit from which he had no desire to run. There was such a thing as loyalty to the home-range, and in the half-year he had worked here it had become a part of him.
Bud Lee had eyes only for this man. But suddenly Carson had seen another man, seeking to screen himself behind the great, misshapen bulk of Quinnion, and with new eagerness was crying: "It's Shorty, Bud! He's mine!" But Shorty was no man's yet. At his back was a window; it was closed and the shade was drawn, but to Shorty it spelled safety.
And Lee let him alone. He and Burkitt sat and smoked and so passed the remaining hours of a long night. The folly of seeking Quinnion in this thick darkness was so obvious that they gave no thought to it, impatiently awaiting the dawn and the coming of the men whom Judith would send.
The cattleman rode away in heavy silence, headed toward the cabin at the Upper End, his men riding with him, an eager, watchful crowd. But Carson had his doubts about getting Quinnion, his fears that it would be a long time before he ever put a rope again to Shorty's thick wrists. During the day Emmet Sawyer, the Rocky Bend sheriff, came, and with him Doctor Brannan.
Lee shuddered, hoping within his heart that Judith had been mistaken. It was too horrible. But, such is youth, such is love. Bud Lee promptly forgot both Chris Quinnion and Mad Ruth as he went through the lilacs to the house.
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