So Donnegan closed the door softly and turned away with ashes in his heart.

35

When Nelly Lebrun raised her head from her hands, Donnegan was a far figure; yet even in the distance she could catch the lilt and easy sway of his body; he rode as he walked, lightly, his feet in the stirrups half taking his weight in a semi-English fashion. For a moment she was on the verge of spurring after him, but she kept the rein taut and merely stared until he dipped away among the hills. For one thing she was quite a.s.sured that she could not overtake that hard rider; and, again, she felt that it was useless to interfere. To step between Lord Nick and one of his purposes would have been like stepping before an avalanche and commanding it to halt with a raised hand.

She watched miserably until even the dust cloud dissolved and the bare, brown hills alone remained before her. Then she turned away, and hour after hour let her black jog on.

To Nelly Lebrun this day was one of those still times which come over the life of a person, and in which they see themselves in relation to the rest of the world clearly. It would not be true to say that Nelly loved Donnegan. Certainly not as yet, for the familiar figure of Lord Nick filled her imagination. But the little man was different. Lord Nick commanded respect, admiration, obedience; but there was about Donnegan something which touched her in an intimate and disturbing manner. She had felt the will-o'-the-wisp flame which burned in him in his great moments. It was possible for her to smile at Donnegan; it was possible even to pity him for his fragility, his touchy pride about his size; to criticize his fondness for taking the center of the stage even in a cheap little mining camp like this and strutting about, the center of all attention. Yet there were qualities in him which escaped her, a possibility of metallic hardness, a pitiless fire of purpose.

To Lord Nick, he was as the bull terrier to the mastiff.

But above all she could not dislodge the memory of his strange talk with her at Lebrun's. Not that she did not season the odd avowals of Donnegan with a grain of salt, but even when she had discounted all that he said, she retained a quivering interest. Somewhere beneath his words she sensed reality. Somewhere beneath his actions she felt a selfless willingness to throw himself away.

As she rode she was comparing him steadily with Lord Nick. And as she made the comparisons she felt more and more a.s.sured that she could pick and choose between the two. They loved her, both of them. With Nick it was an old story; with Donnegan it might be equally true in spite of its newness. And Nelly Lebrun felt rich. Not that she would have been willing to give up Lord Nick. By no means. But neither was she willing to throw away Donnegan. Diamonds in one hand and pearls in the other.

Which handful must she discard?

She remained riding an unconscionable length of time, and when she drew rein again before her father's house, the black was flecked with foam from his clamped bit, and there was a thick lather under the stirrup leathers. She threw the reins to the servant who answered her call and went slowly into the house.

Donnegan, by this time, was dead. She began to feel that it would be hard to look Lord Nick in the face again. His other killings had often seemed to her glorious. She had rejoiced in the invincibility of her lover.

Now he suddenly took on the aspect of a murderer.

She found the house hushed. Perhaps everyone was at the gaming house; for now it was midafternoon. But when she opened the door to the apartment which they used as a living room she found Joe Rix and the Pedlar and Lester sitting side by side, silent. There was no whisky in sight; there were no cards to be seen. Marvel of marvels, these three men were spending their time in solemn thought. A sudden thought rushed over her, and her cry told where her heart really lay, at least at this time.

"Lord Nick--has he been--"

The Pedlar lifted his gaunt head and stared at her without expression.

It was Joe Rix who answered.

"Nick's upstairs."

"Safe?"

"Not a scratch."

She sank into a chair with a sigh, but was instantly on edge again with the second thought.

"Donnegan?" she whispered.

"Safe and sound," said Lester coldly.

She could not gather the truth of the statement.

"Then Nick got Landis back before Donnegan returned?"

"No."

Like any other girl, Nelly Lebrun hated a puzzle above all things in the world, at least a puzzle which affected her new friends.

"Lester, what's happened?" she demanded.

At this Lester, who had been brooding upon the floor, raised his eyes and then switched one leg over the other. He was a typical cowman, was Lester, from his crimson handkerchief knotted around his throat to his shop-made boots which fitted slenderly about his instep with the care of a gloved hand.

"I dunno what happened," said Lester. "Which looks like what counts is the things that didn't happen. Landis is still with that devil, Macon.

Donnegan is loose without a scratch, and Lord Nick is in his room with a face as black as a cloudy night."

And briefly he described how Lord Nick had gone up the hill, seen the colonel, come back, taken a horse litter, and gone up the hill again, while the populace of The Corner waited for a crash. For Donnegan had arrived in the meantime. And how Nick had gone into the cabin, remained a singularly long time, and then come out, with a face half white and half red and an eye that dared anyone to ask questions. He had strode straight home to Lebrun's and gone to his room; and there he remained, never making a sound.

"But I'll give you my way of readin' the sign on that trail," said Lester. "Nick goes up the hill to clean up on Donnegan. He sees him; they size each other up in a flash; they figure that if they's a gun it means a double killin'--and they simply haul off and say a perlite fare-thee-well."

The girl paid no attention to these remarks. She was sunk in a brown study.

"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--"