Glendin was at the door. He fumbled behind him,
found the knob, and swung it open.
“If you double-cross me,” said Drew, “all
that I’ve ever done to any man before will be
nothing to what I’ll do to you, Glendin.”
And the deputy cried, his voice gone shrill and high,
“I ain’t done nothin’ that ain’t
been done before!”
And he vanished through the doorway. Drew followed
and looked after the deputy, who galloped like a fugitive
over the hills.
“Shall I follow him?” he muttered to himself,
but a faint groan reached him from the bedroom.
He turned on his heel and went back to Calamity Ben
and the doctor.
CRITICISM
After the first burst of speed, Bard resigned himself
to following Sally, knowing that he could never catch
her, first because her horse carried a burden so much
lighter than his own, but above all because the girl
seemed to know every rock and twist in the trail, and
rode as courageously through the night as if it had
been broad day.
She was following a course as straight as a crow’s
flight between the ranch of Drew and his old place,
a desperate trail that veered and twisted up the side
of the mountain and then lurched headlong down on
the farther side of the crest. Half a dozen times
Anthony checked his horse and shook his head at the
trail, but always the figure of the girl, glimmering
through the dusk ahead, challenged and drove him on.
Out of the sharp descent of the downward trail they
broke suddenly onto the comparatively smooth floor
of the valley, and he followed her at a gallop which
ended in front of the old house of Drew. They
had been far less than five hours on the way, yet
his long detour to the south had given him three days
of hard riding to cover the same points. His desire
to meet Logan again became almost a passion. He
swung to the ground, and advanced to Sally with his
hands outstretched.
“You’ve shown me the short cut, all right,”
he said, “and I thank you a thousand times,
Sally. So-long, and good luck to you.”
She disregarded his extended hand.
“Want me to leave you here, Bard?”
“You certainly can’t stay.”
She slipped from her horse and jerked the reins over
its head. In another moment she had untied the
cinch and drawn off the saddle. She held its
weight easily on one forearm. Actions, after all,
are more eloquent than words.
“I suppose,” he said gloomily, “that
if I’d asked you to stay you’d have ridden
off at once?”
She did not answer for a moment, and he strained his
eyes to read her expression through the dark.
At length she laughed with a new note in her voice
that drew her strangely close to him. During the
long ride he had come to feel toward her as toward
another man, as strong as himself, almost, as fine
a horseman, and much surer of herself on that wild
trail; but now the laughter in an instant rubbed all
this away. It was rather low, and with a throaty
quality of richness. The pulse of the sound was
like a light finger tapping some marvellously sensitive
chord within him.
