hoarse, ringing cry, as of one who is shouting against a great wind: "Dan! Dan Barry! Come out!"
Dan Barry was on his feet and gliding to the wall, where he took down his belt from a nail and buckled it swiftly around him. And Kate ran to the window with the wolf-dog snarling beside her and saw standing in front of the house, his hat off, his black hair wildly tumbled, and two guns in his hands, Buck Daniels! Behind him the tall bay mare shook with her panting and glistened with the sweat of the long ride.
She heard a scratching next and saw the wolf-dog rear up and paw at the door. Once through that door and he would be at the throat of the man outside, she knew. Nor he alone, for Dan Barry was coming swiftly across the room with that strange, padding step. He had no eye for her. He was smiling, and she had rather have seen him in a cursing fury than to see this smile. It curled the upper lip with something like a sneer; and she caught the white glint of his teeth; the wolf-dog snarled back over his shoulder to hurry his master. It was the crisis which she had known all day was coming, sooner or later. She had only prayed that it might be delayed for a little time. And confronting the danger was like stepping into the path of runaway horses. Fear ruled her with an iron hand, and she swayed back against the wall and supported herself with an outstretched hand.
What was there to be done? If she stepped in between him and his man, he would brush her aside from his path and out of his life forever. If he went on to his vengeance he would no less be started on the path which led around the world away from her. The law would be the hound which pursued him and relentlessly nipped at his heels—an eternal terror and unrest. No thought of Buck Daniels who had done so much for her. She cast his services out of her mind with the natural cruelty of woman. Her whole thought was, selfishly, for the man before her, and for herself.
He was there—his hand was upon the knob of the door. And then she remembered how the teeth of Black Bart had closed over her arm—and how they had not broken even the skin. In an instant she was pressed against the door before Dan Barry—her arms outstretched.
He fell back the slightest bit before her, and then he came again and brushed her slowly, gently, to one side, with an irresistible strength. She had to meet his eyes now—there was no help for it—and she saw there that swirl of yellow light—that insatiable hunger. And she knew, fully and bitterly, that she had failed. With the wolf-dog, indeed, she had conquered, but the man escaped her. If time had been granted her she would have won, she knew, but the hand of Buck Daniels, so long her ally, had destroyed her chances. It was his hand now which shook the knob of the door, and she turned with a sob of despair to face the new danger.
In her wildest dreams she had never visioned Buck Daniels transformed like this. She knew that in his past, as one of those long-riders who roam the mountain-desert, their hand against the hands of every man, Buck Daniels had been known and feared by the strongest. But all she had seen of Buck Daniels had been gentleness itself. Yet what faced her as the door flew wide was a nightmare thing with haggard face and shadow-buried, glittering eyes—unshaven, unkempt of hair, his shirt open at the throat, his great hands clenched for the battle. The wolf-dog, at that familiar sight, whined a low greeting, but with a glance at his master knew that there was a change—the old alliance was broken—so he bared his white teeth and changed his whine to a snarl of hate.
Then a strange terror struck Kate Cumberland. She had never dreamed that she could fear for Dan Barry at the hands of any man, but now the desperate resolve which breathed from every line of Buck Daniels, chilled her blood at the heart. She sprang back before Dan Barry. Facing him, she saw that demoniac glitter of yellow rising momently brighter in his eyes, and he was smiling. No execration or loud voiced curse could have contained the distilled malignancy of that smile. All this she caught in a single glimpse. The next instant she had whirled and stood before Dan, shielding him with outspread arms and facing Buck Daniels. The latter thrust back into the holster the gun which he had drawn when he entered the room.
"Stand away from him, Kate," he commanded, and his eyes went past her to dwell on the face of Barry. "Stand away from him. It's been comin' for a long time, and now it's here. Barry I'm takin' no start on you. Stand away from the girl and pull your gun—and I'll pump you full of lead."
The softest of soft voices murmured behind her: "I been waitin' for you, Buck, days and days and days. I ain't never been so glad to see anybody!"
And she felt Barry slip shadowlike to one side. She sprang in front of him again with a wild cry.
"Buck!" she begged, "don't shoot!"
Laughter, ringing and unhuman, filled the throat of Buck Daniels.
"Is it him you're beggin' for?" he sneered at her. "Is it him you got your fears for? Ain't you got a word of pity for poor Buck Daniels that sneaked off like a whipped puppy? Bah! Dan Barry, the time is come. I been leadin' the life of a houn' dog for your sake. But it's ended. Pull your gun and get out from behind the skirts of that girl!"
As long as they faced each other with the challenge in their eyes, nothing on earth could avert the fight, she knew, but if she could delay them for one moment—she felt that swift moving form behind her slipping away from behind her—she could follow Barry's movements by the light in Daniels' eyes.
"Buck!" she cried, "for God's sake—for my sake turn away from him—and—roll another cigarette!"
For she remembered the story—how Daniels had turned under the very nose of danger and done this insane thing in the saloon at Brownsville and in her despair she could think of no other appeal.
It was the very strangeness of it that gave it point. Buck Daniels turned on his heel.
"It's the last kindness I do you, Dan," he said, with his broad back to them. "But before you die you got to know why I'm killin' you. I'm going to roll one cigarette and smoke it and while I smoke it I'm goin' to tell you the concentrated truth about your worthless self and when I'm done smokin' I'm goin' to turn around and drop you where you stand. D'ye hear?"
"They's no need of waitin'," answered the soft voice of Barry. "Talkin' don't mean much."
But Kate Cumberland turned and faced him. He was fairly a-quiver with eagerness and the hate welled and blazed and flickered in his eyes; his face was pale—very pale—and it seemed to her that she could make out in the pallor the print of the fingers of Buck Daniels and that blow those many days before. And she feared him as she had never feared him before—yet she blocked his way still with the outspread arms.
They could hear the crinkle of the cigarette paper as Buck rolled his smoke.
"No," said Buck, his voice suddenly altered to an almost casual moderation, "talk don't mean nothin' to you. Talk is human, and nothin' human means nothin' to you. But I got to tell you why you ought to die, Barry.
"I started out this mornin' hatin' the ground you walked on, but now I see that they ain't no use to hate you. Is they any use hatin' a mountain-lion that kills calves? No, you don't hate it, but you get a gun and trail it and shoot it down. And that's the way with you."
They heard the scratch of his match.
"That's the way with you. I got my back to you right now because if I looked you in the eye I couldn't let you live no more'n I could let a mountain-lion live. I know you're faster with your gun than I am and stronger than I am, and made to fight. But I know I'm going to kill you. You've done your work—you've left hell on all sides of you—it's your time to die. I know it! You been lyin' like a snake in the rocks with your poison ready for any man that walks past you. Now your poison is about used up."
He paused, and then when he spoke again there was a ring
