fine face was tremendously sober and oddly set. "Listen, the most damnable visions keep coming to me, night after night. Faces staring at me from behind a bloody film. Sounds nutty, doesn't it? I have risen from a solid sleep with the horrible thing right in my eyes. I have heard shots, and men groaning. Sometimes the film thins out, and I think I see one of those faces and recognize it as my own. Sometimes I think I see Dave. Sometimes Lou Redmain. But when I reach out and am just on the point of identifying them, the bloody haze falls down."
"Cut that out," admonished Niland, "or I'll get the willies."
Steele's eyes were blackly brooding. "I've always been a fellow to take things as they came along. Never worrying much. Life's always been pretty easy, pretty full of sunshine. But for two months, night and day, I have felt as if I were drifting along toward darkness. I keep looking around me, and the sun's there, and the stars are there—the world's just the same as it always was. But still that ungodly black curtain keeps coming nearer and I'm heading for it. What's behind it—who knows?"
"Stop that," said Niland sharply. "You know what you need? You need to go over to the Palace, get one of the girls to sit beside you, and then drink hard."
"It's been tried before," said Steele and pulled himself out of his stark mood with visible effort. "The kind of forgetfulness one buys at the Palace only lasts so long. Well, I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and fair pastures were mine by heritage. But my star is a restless one and sometimes dark in the sky. The brightest spot in this little flicker of existence that is me comes from knowing I am a friend of Dave's. What's the matter with that bottle—leakin'?"
"The Palace is across the street and three doors down," said Niland.
DARK HUNGERS
A familiar horse stood by Durbin's hardware store. Denver, stopping on the instant, ran his glance along the street and discovered Lou Redmain. The outlaw was posted in the mouth of an alley, his attention riveted on the hotel porch. Denver drew aside from the eddy of the crowd and found what held Redmain's interest. Eve Leverage sat in a porch rocker with Debbie Lunt and Steve Steers beside her.
Even with fifty feet intervening, Denver caught a change in Redmain's dark and pointed face. The formal indifference was gone and in its stead was an utter absorption. Unaccountably it reminded Denver of a time in early boyhood when he had left his father's house, climbed a distant ridge, and saw for the first time the sweeping vastness of the prairie. It came back to him even now, that shock of surprise upon finding a world he had never known about, never dreamed of. All of an afternoon he had lain on his stomach, swelling with vague desires. And it seemed to him that Lou Redmain, staring across the street, might be going through a like turmoil of spirit.
Denver shook his head and felt a pity for the man. All that Redmain stood for was repulsive and hateful to Eve Leverage. That dusty street might as well be a thousand miles wide, so great was the gulf separating the minds of these two. Redmain could never cross it. And Denver knew that Redmain recognized the fact; he also knew that to Redmain this was bitter knowledge.
"Poor devil," grunted Denver. "Here he is, built like the rest of us, with the same stuff in him—and still he never will belong. And what makes the hurt still worse is to realize that but for his own folly he might have been the kind of a fellow Eve would like."
Thinking this, Denver was considerably jarred to see Redmain suddenly square himself in the alley and walk straight for the porch. He got to the steps and whipped off his hat before Eve saw him. Steve Steers rose. Then Eve nodded her head, neither friendly nor unfriendly. Denver caught himself from going forward.
"Here, here, this is no better than eavesdroppin'. None of my business." Turning, he went to the bank.
To Eve the meeting came with sharp unexpectedness. It was impossible for her to like Lou Redmain. She abhorred outlawry as only a woman can whose menfolk are exposed to the dangers of outlaw violence. The black hints surrounding Redmain made her shudder. Yet she met the situation with cool detachment, inclining her head at this strange visitor whose eyes seemed to burn into her. The wind ruffled his hair as he stood soldierlike on the steps. Steve Steers cleared his throat impatiently, but Redmain never noticed Steve.
"A pleasant day," said he, and Eve was surprised at the supple melody of his voice.
"It has been nice," she replied.
He seemed to listen to her words rather than to the meaning of them; and she felt the almost hungry impact of his glance. It made her flush a little. Steve was quite still. Debbie held herself scornfully back.
"I have been looking for your father," went on Lou Redmain. "Will you tell him I have seen some of his strays away up behind Sharon Springs?"
"I will," said Eve. "And I know he'd want me to thank you for mentioning it."
"I already have my reward, Miss Eve."
"How is that?"
"Talking to you," he answered, inclining his head.
"It seems a slim reward to me," she reflected.
He shook his head. "It is not possible for you to know what things a lonely man finds pleasure in."
She let the silence pile up. Redmain shifted. "Doubtless you will be going to the dance."
"I think so."
He appeared to brace himself, to take a deeper breath. "If I came, I wonder if you might find it possible out of the kindness of your heart to give me a dance."
She met the question squarely, holding his eyes. "I'm sorry, Mr. Redmain, but I wouldn't want to. And I don't mean to hurt your feelings."
He took the rejection impassively. "A man should never ask too much of a world that gives very little." Then rather gently he added, "You have not hurt my feelings. I quite understand." Raising his hat, he turned quickly and walked away toward the east end of town.
"Why," exclaimed Debbie, "I should have slapped his face!"
"Don't say that," rebuked Eve, looking troubled. But the trouble left her the next moment when Denver swung up to the steps and took a chair. She wrinkled her nose at him. "I have been advertising myself on this porch for one hour, David. What's wrong with my charm?"
He chuckled. "Would have come earlier, but I saw somebody else answerin' the ad, so I waited."
"Then why didn't you come and break into it?" Debbie asked.
"Like to give every man a chance," drawled Denver.
"Do you think he had much chance?" demanded Eve.
"No-o, but the poor fellow needs a little sunshine now and then."
"Sometimes," said Debbie, "I think the men of this county are scared to death of Lou Redmain."
Eve grew impatient. "Debbie, you can say more foolish, unwise things!"
"Well," retorted Debbie, "everybody knows he's an outlaw, and yet he walks into town like he owned it. Why isn't he arrested?"
"Lack of proof," murmured Denver.
