blew.  And already that wind was blowing.  She had watched the scene on the platform, had understood the intent of the mimicry, had seen the winks and nudges, had heard the mocking war whoop.  All this she had seen, all this had been stored away in her consciousness to recur again and again in the future.  Even now her cheeks had burned at the knowledge, and at last she had watched the man’s coming with a feeling of repression she had never known before, whose significance she did not try to analyse, did not in the least understand.  She did not thank him for the money.  To do so never occurred to her.  It was the moment for parting, but she did not throw her arms about his neck in abandon, as she would have done a week before.  Something, she knew not what, prevented.  She merely sat there, repressed, passive, waiting.  A moment, by her side, the Indian paused.  He did not speak, he did not move.  He merely looked at her; and in his dark eyes there was mirrored a reflection of the look there had been in the eyes of the wild thing he had stalked and captured that day alone on the prairie.  But the girl was not looking at him, did not see.  A moment he stood so, unconsciously as so many, many times before, in pose; then deliberately, gently, ignoring the row of curious observant eyes, he took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Good-bye, Bess,” he said low.  “Come back as soon as you can; and don’t worry.  Everything will come right.”  Gently as he had lifted the hand, he released it.  A smile—­who but he could have smiled at that moment?—­played for an instant over his face.  Then, almost before the girl realised the fact, before the repressive something that held her in its grip gave release, he was gone.

As he left the coach, Craig, who was waiting, started without a word or a hint of recognition to enter.  His foot was already on the step, when he felt a hand upon his arm; a hand with a grip whose meaning there was no misinterpreting.  Against his will he drew back.  Against his will he met the other, face to face, eye to eye.  For what seemed to him minutes, but which in reality was only a second, they stood so.  Not a word was spoken, of warning or of commonplace.  There was no polite farce for the benefit of the spectators.  The Indian merely looked at him; but as once before, alone under the stars, that look was to remain burned on the white man’s memory until he went to his grave.

“A’board,” bawled the conductor, and as though worked by the same wire, the engineer’s waiting head disappeared within the cab window.

Side by side, Clayton Craig and Elizabeth Landor sat watching the weather-stained station and the curious assembled group, as apparently they slowly receded.  The last thing they saw was the alien figure of an Indian in rancher’s garb, gazing motionless after them; and by his side, in baiting pantomime, one gawky urchin engaged in the labour of scalping a mate.  The last sound that reached their ears was the ironic note of a war whoop repeated again and again.