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"I hain't goin' ter shoot ye down like ye merits," he said, "an' yit I misdoubts ef hit's so much because I've got ter give ye a chanst, atter all, es ther hunger ter see yore life go out under my bare fingers." Slowly dying hope had its redawning in Bas Rowlett's face.
"Ef ye'd been jest a mite quicker in drawin', Bas," he declared, ironically, "or jest a mite tardier in throwin' down thet gun I'd hev hed ter kill ye. Now we kin talk some more." The conflict of wills was over and Rowlett's voice changed to a whine as he asked beseechingly: "What proof hev I got ye won't show ther paper ter some outsider afore we fights hit out?"
A sudden fear possessed her that fatal news had reached him before it had come to her. "Hes anything happened ter him?" Instantly she realized what she had done, but it was useless to go on acting after the self-betrayal of that moment's agitation, and even Rowlett's self-complacent egotism read the whole truth of its meaning.
When certain subsidiary affairs had been adjusted all matters of upbuilding for Rowlett's influence and repute Bas turned to Sim Squires. "Sim," he said, genially, "I reckon we're ready ter heer what ye've got on yore mind now," and the other grinned.
A silent and steady current of black-clad humanity was still flowing inward across the threshold, and every man was armed. Yet at the ring of victorious elation in Bas Rowlett's voice the impulse to strike down that master of deceit before his own moment came almost overpowered him almost but not quite.
I reckon I failed him when he needed me most but Bas Rowlett's accountable ter me!" When the neighbour woman came the next morning to prepare breakfast she fled screaming away from the gruesome sight that met her eyes: the sight of a dead man lying on a sledge, and a hunchback, who seemed dead, too, stretched unconscious across the body.
"I reckon Rowlett's done left me some message or other," he reflected as he took the missive down and went inside to light his lantern and build a fire on the hearth since even the summer nights were shrewdly chilling here in the hills.
I reckon ye don't know thet, either, but Bas Rowlett's ther one body thet brought 'em ter life an' eggs 'em on. When he dies ther riders'll fall apart like a string of beads thet's been cut in two. Terday I aims ter cut ther thread."
He's mine!" He paused, then with something like a sob he repeated in a dazed voice, "An' ye says he aimed ter fo'ce Dorothy with his love-makin'. God!" Hump Doane was still clinging to the rifle upon which Thornton had laid his hands, and they stood there, two claimants, neither of whom was willing to surrender his title to a disputed prize the prize of Bas Rowlett's life.
Rowlett's infatuation for Dorothy Harper had been of a piece with his perverse nature always a flame of hot passion and never a steadfast light of unselfish love.
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