He seized his head between his hands and beat his
knuckles against the corrugated flesh of his forehead.
She had thought that!
Desire for action, action, action, beset him like
thirst. To close with this devil, this wolf-man,
to set his big fingers in the smooth, almost girlish
throat, to choke the yellow light out of those eyes—or
else to die, but like a man proving his manhood before
the girl.
He read the letter again and then in an agony he crumpled
it to a ball and hurled it across the room. Catching
up his hat and his belt he rushed wildly from the
room, thundered down the crazy stairs, and out to
the stable.
Long Bess, the tall, bay mare which had carried him
through three years of adventure and danger and never
failed him yet, raised her aristocratic head above
the side of the stall and whinnied. For answer
he shook his fist at her and cursed insanely.
The saddle he jerked by one stirrup leather from the
wall and flung it on her back, and when she cringed
to the far side of the stall, he cursed her again,
bitterly, and drew up the cinch with a lunge that made
her groan. He did not wait to lead her to the
door before mounting, but sprang into the saddle.
Here he whirled her about and drove home the spurs.
Cruel usage, for Long Bess had never denied him the
utmost of her speed and strength at the mere sound
of his voice. Now, half-mad with fear and surprise,
she sprang forward at full gallop, slipped and almost
sprawled on the floor, and then thundered out of the
door.
At once the soft sandy-soil received and deadened
the impact of her hoofs. Off she flew through
the grey of the morning, soundless as a racing ghost.
Long Bess—there was good blood in her.
She was as delicately limbed as an antelope, and her
heart was as strong as the smooth muscles of her shoulders
and hips. Yet to Buck Daniels her fastest gait
seemed slower than a walk. Already his thoughts
were flying far before. Already he stood before
the ranch house calling to Dan Barry. Ay, at the
very door of the place they should meet and one of
them must die. And better by far that the blood
of him who died should stain the hands of Kate Cumberland.
VICTORY
The grey light which Buck Daniels saw that morning,
hardly brightened as the day grew, for the sky was
overcast with sheeted mist and through it a dull evening
radiance filtered to the earth. Wung Lu, his celestial,
slant eyes now yellow with cold, built a fire on the
big hearth in the living-room. It was a roaring
blaze, for the wood was so dry that it flamed as though
soaked in oil, and tumbled a mass of yellow fire up
the chimney. So bright was the fire, indeed,
that its light quite over-shadowed the meagre day
which looked in at the window, and every chair cast
its shadow away from the hearth. Later on Kate
Cumberland came down the backstairs and slipped into
the kitchen.
