“There’s something behind it all,” she said, more to herself than to the men.  “Nick is proud as the devil himself.  And I can’t imagine why he’d let Donnegan go.  Oh, it might have been done if they’d met alone in the desert.  But with the whole town looking on and waiting for Nick to clean up on Donnegan—­no, it isn’t possible.  There must have been a showdown of some kind.”

There was a grim little silence after this.

“Maybe there was,” said the Pedlar dryly.  “Maybe there was a showdown—­and the wind-up of it is that Nick comes home meek as a six-year-old broke down in front.”

She stared at him, first astonished, and then almost frightened.

“You mean that Nick may have taken water?”

The three, as one man, shrugged their shoulders, and met her glance with cold eyes.

“You fools!” cried the girl, springing to her feet.  “He’d rather die!”

Joe Rix leaned forward, and to emphasize his point he stabbed one dirty forefinger into the fat palm of his other hand.

“You just start thinkin’ back,” he said solemnly, “and you’ll remember that Donnegan has done some pretty slick things.”

Lester added with a touch of contempt:  “Like shootin’ down Landis one day and then sittin’ down and havin’ a nice long chat with you the next.  I dunno how he does it.”

“That hunch of yours,” said the girl fiercely, “ought to be roped and branded—­lie!  Lester, don’t look at me like that.  And if you think Nick has lost his grip on things you’re dead wrong.  Step light, Lester—­and the rest of you.  Or Nick may hear you walk—­and think.”

She flung out of the room and raced up the stairs to Lord Nick’s room.  There was an interval without response after her first knock.  But when she rapped again he called out to know who was there.  At her answer she heard his heavy stride cross the room, and the door opened slowly.  His face, as she looked up to it, was so changed that she hardly knew him.  His hair was unkempt, on end, where he had sat with his fingers thrust into it, buried in thought.  And the marks of his palms were red upon his forehead.

“Nick,” she whispered, frightened, “what is it?”

He looked down half fiercely, half sadly at her.  And though his lips parted they closed again before he spoke.  Fear jumped coldly in Nelly Lebrun.

“Did Donnegan—­” she pleaded, white-faced.  “Did he—­”

“Did he bluff me out?” finished Nick.  “No, he didn’t.  That’s what everybody’ll say.  I know it, don’t I?  And that’s why I’m staying here by myself, because the first fool that looks at me with a question in his face, why—­I’ll break him in two.”

She pressed close to him, more frightened than before.  That Lord Nick should have been driven to defend himself with words was almost too much for credence.

“You know I don’t believe it, Nick?  You know that I’m not doubting you?”