She took his hand and led him back by a different path to the trail.  He was surprised to find that the cabin, its window glowing from the fire, was only a hundred yards away.  “Go in the back way, by the shed.  Don’t go in the room, nor near the light, if you can.  Don’t talk inside, but call or beckon to Dad.  Remember,” she said, with a laugh, “you’re keeping watch of me for him.  Pull your hair down on your eyes, so.”  This operation, like most feminine embellishments of the masculine toilet, was attended by a kiss, and Flip, stepping back into the shadow, vanished in the storm.

Lance’s first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex.  He picked up his draggled skirt and drew a bowie-knife from his boot.  From his bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he felt the caps.  He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the shed.  It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room.  A single voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his ears.  A name was mentioned—­his own!  His angry hand was on the latch.  One moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instant another name was uttered—­a name that dropped his hand from the latch and the blood from his cheeks.  He staggered backward, passed his hand swiftly across his forehead, recovered himself with a gesture of mingled rage and despair, and, sinking on his knees beside the door, pressed his hot temples against the crack.

“Do I know Lance Harriott?” said the voice.  “Do I know the d—­d ruffian?  Didn’t I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles from the Crossing?  Didn’t we lose sight of him the very day he turned up yer at this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey?  Ain’t it the same man as killed Arkansaw Bob—­Bob Ridley—­the name he went by in Sonora?  And who was Bob Ridley, eh?  Who?  Why, you d—­d old fool, it was Bob Fairley—­YOUR SON!”

The old man’s voice rose querulous and indistinct.

“What are ye talkin’ about?” interrupted the first speaker.  I tell you I know.  Look at these pictures.  I found ’em on his body.  Look at ’em.  Pictures of you and your girl.  Pr’aps you’ll deny them.  Pr’aps you’ll tell me I lie when I tell you he told me he was your son; told me how he ran away from you; how you were livin’ somewhere in the mountains makin’ gold, or suthin’ else, outer charcoal.  He told me who he was as a secret.  He never let on he told it to any one else.  And when I found that the man who killed him, Lance Harriott, had been hidin’ here, had been sendin’ spies all around to find out all about your son, had been foolin’ you, and tryin’ to ruin your gal as he had killed your boy, I knew that he knew it too.”

“LIAR!”