Part 35

"Oh yes, I do--at least, the case is different with me; my work is here. It hurts me to think of going back to the hills, leaving you here in the midst of these wolves."

He was talking now in the low, throbbing utterance of a man carried out of himself. "It angers me to think that the worst of these loafers, these drunken beasts, can glare at you--can speak to you. They have no right to breathe the same air with one like you."

She did not smile at this; his voice, his eyes were filled with the gravity of the lover whose passion is not humorous. Against his training, his judgment, he was being drawn into closer and closer union with this daughter of violence, and he added: "You may not see me in the morning."

"You must not go without seeing my mother. You must have your breakfast with us. It hurt us to think you didn't come to us for supper."

Her words meant little, but the look in her eyes, the music in her voice, made him shiver. He stammered: "I--I must return to my duties to-morrow. I should go back to-night."

"You mustn't do that. You can't do that. You are to appear before the judge."

He smiled. "That is true. I'd forgotten that."

Radiant with relief, she extended her hand. "Good-night, then. You must sleep."

He took her hand and drew her toward him, then perceiving both wonder and fear in her eyes, he conquered himself. "Good-night," he repeated, dropping her hand, but his voice was husky with its passion.

Tired as he was, the ranger could not compose himself to sleep. The memory of the girl's sweet face, the look of half-surrender in her eyes, the knowledge that she loved him, and that she was lying but a few yards from him, made slumber impossible. At the moment she seemed altogether admirable, entirely worthy to be won.

THE OLD SHEEP-HERDER

The ranger was awakened in the first faint dawn by the passing of the girl's light feet as she went across the hall to her mother's room, and a moment later he heard the low murmur of her voice. Throwing off his blankets and making such scant toilet as he needed, he stepped into the hall and waited for her to return.

Soon she came toward him, a smile of confidence and pleasure on her lips.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Quite comfortable."

"And you?" His voice was very tender.

"I am a little tired," she acknowledged. "I didn't sleep very well."

"You didn't sleep at all," he declared, regretfully.

"Oh yes, I did," she replied, brightly.

She appeared a little pale but by no means worn. Indeed, her face had taken on new charm with its confession of feminine weakness, its expression of trust in him.

These two ardent souls confronted each other in absorbed silence with keener perception, with new daring, with new intimacy, till he recalled himself with effort. "You must let me help you if there's anything I can do. Remember, I'm your big brother."

"I remember," she answered, smilingly, "and I'm going out to see what my big brother is to have for breakfast."

Cavanagh found the street empty, silent, and utterly commonplace. And as he walked past Halsey's saloon the tumult of the night seemed born of a vision in disordered sleep--and yet it had happened! From these reeking little dens a score of foul tatterdemalions had issued, charged with malicious fury. Each of these shacks seemed the lurking-place of a species of malevolent insect whose sting was out for every comer.

The rotting sidewalks, the tiny shops, with their dusty fly-specked windows, the groggeries, from whose open doors a noisome vapor streamed, poisoning the morning air--all these typed the old-time West as Redfield and his farmstead typed the new.

"Once I would have laughed at this town," he said; "but now it is disgusting--something to be wiped out as one expunges an obscene mark upon a public wall."

As for the attack upon himself, terrifying as it had seemed to Lee Virginia, it was in reality only another lively episode in the history of the town, another disagreeable duty in the life of a ranger. It was all a part of his job.

He went forth to his duties with a deepened conviction of the essential lawlessness of the State and of America in general; for this spirit of mob law was to be found in some form throughout the land. He was disgusted, but not beaten. His resolution to carry out the terms of his contract with the Government remained unshaken.

He carried with him, also, a final disturbing glimpse of Eliza Wetherford's girl that did indeed threaten his peace of mind. There was an involuntary appeal, a wistful depth, to her glance which awakened in him an indignant pity, and also blew into flame something not so creditable--something which smoldered beneath his conscious will. He perceived in her a spirit of yielding which was difficult to resist. He understood, much more clearly than at his first meeting with her, how impossible it was for her to remain in this country (where law was a joke and women a ribald jest) without being corrupted. She had not escaped her heritage of passion, and her glances, innocent as they were, roused, even in him, something lawless.