Kate's eyes flashed again.

"Sure. That's how he reckons."

They looked into each other's eyes steadily. Charlie's were lit by a curious baffling irony.

It was finally Charlie who spoke.

"Fyles's plans are not likely to disconcert--anybody. There is no fear of legitimate capture. It is treachery--that is to be feared."

Kate started.

"Treachery?"

The man nodded. And the woman gave a sharp exclamation of disgust.

"Treachery! I hate it. I despise it. I--I could kill a traitor.

You--fear treachery?"

"I have been warned of it. That's all," he said, in a hard biting voice. "It is because of this I've come to you to-night. Who can tell the outcome of to-morrow if there's treachery? So I came to you to make my--last appeal." In a moment his pa.s.sion was blazing forth again. "Say the word, dear. Forget this man. Give me one little grain of hope. We can leave this place, and all the treachery in the world doesn't matter. We can leave that, and everything else, behind us--forever."

Kate shook her head. It almost seemed as though his pleading had pa.s.sed her by.

"It can't be," she said, almost coldly. "It's too late."

"Too late?"

The woman nodded, but her thoughts seemed far away.

"Tell me," she said, after a pause, while she avoided the man's despairing eyes, "where does the treachery--lie?"

The man turned away. His slim shoulders lifted with seeming indifference.

"Pete Clancy and Nick Devereux--your two boys. But I don't know yet.

I'm not sure."

Suddenly Kate moved toward him. The coldness had pa.s.sed out of her manner. Her eyes had softened, and a smile, a tender smile, shone in their depths. She held out her two hands.

"Charlie, boy," she said, "you needn't fear for treachery for to-morrow. Leave Pete and Nick to me. I can deal with them. I promise you Fyles will gain nothing in the game he's playing, through them.

Now, you must go. Give up all thought of me. We cannot help things. We can never be anything to each other, more than we are now, so why endure the pain and misery of a hope than can never be fulfilled. As long as I live I shall pray for your welfare. So long as I can I shall strive for it. It is for you to be strong. You must set your heart upon living down this old past, and--forgetting me. I am not worth the love you give me. Indeed--indeed I am not."

But her outstretched hands were ignored. Charlie made a slight, impatient movement, and turned toward the door. Finally he looked back, and, for a moment, his gaze encountered the appeal in Kate's eyes. Then he pa.s.sed on swiftly as though he could not endure the sight of all that which he knew to be slipping from beyond his reach.

One hand reached the door handle, then he hunched his shoulders obstinately.

"I give up nothing, Kate. Nothing," he said doggedly. "I love you, and I shall go on loving you to--the end."

It was late when Kate returned to her home. The house was in darkness, and the moon brought it out in silvery, frigid relief. Thrusting the front door open, she paused for a moment upon the threshold. She might have been listening; she might merely have been thinking. Finally she sat down and removed her shoes and gently tip-toed to her sister's room.

Helen's door was ajar, and she pushed it open and looked in. The moonlight was shining across her sister's fair features, and the ma.s.s of loose fair hair which framed them. She was sound asleep in that wonderful dreamless land of rest, far from the turbulent little world in which her waking hours were spent.

Kate as softly withdrew. Now she made her way back to the familiar kitchen parlor, and, in the dark, took up her position at the open window. Her whole attention was centered upon the ranch house of Charlie Bryant across the valley, which stood out in the moonlight almost as clearly as in daylight. A light was shining in one of its windows.

She sat there waiting with infinite patience, and at last the light was extinguished. Then she rose, and, going to her bureau, picked up a pair of night gla.s.ses. She leveled these at the distant house and continued her watch.

Her vigil, however, did not last long. In a few minutes she distinctly beheld a figure move out on to the veranda. Its ident.i.ty, at that distance, she was left to conjecture. But she saw it leave the veranda and make its way round to the barn. A few minutes later, again, it reappeared, this time mounted upon a horse.

She sighed. It was a sigh of impatience, it was also a sigh of resignation. Then she rose from her seat, and returned her night gla.s.ses to the bureau. Again she looked out of the window, but this time she remained standing. Nor were her eyes turned upon the distant ranch house. Her whole att.i.tude was one of deep pensiveness.

At last, however, she stirred, and, quite suddenly, her movements became quick and decided. It almost seemed as though she had finally reached a definite resolve.

She pa.s.sed out of the room, and then out of the house through the back way. The little barn was within a hundred yards of the house. She was still in the shadow of the house when she became aware of figures moving just outside the barn. In a moment she recognized them. They were her two hired men in the act of riding away on their horses.

She let them get well away. Then she drew the door close after her and crossed over to the barn.

The door was open and she went in. Pa.s.sing the two empty stalls where the men's horses were kept, she went on to another, where her own horse, hearing her approach, set its collar chains rattling and greeted her with a suppressed whinny.

It was the work of but a few minutes to saddle him and bring him out into the moonlight. Then she mounted him and rode off in the wake of those who had gone on before.

CHAPTER XXV

THE BROKEN CHAIN

The peace of Sunday evening merged into the calm of night. Service was long since over in the old Meeting House. The traveling parson had come and gone. He had done his duty. He had read the service to the lounging, unkempt congregation, he had prayed over them, he had preached at them. He had done all these things because it was his duty to do so, but he had done them without the least hope of improving the morals of his unworthy flock, or of penetrating one single fraction through their crime-stained armor of self-satisfaction. Rocky Springs was one of the shadowed corners upon his tour, into which, he felt, it was beyond his power to impart light.

There were those in the valley who viewed the Sabbath calm with a derisive smile. There were those who sat upon their little verandas and smoked, and talked in hushed voices, lest listening ears might catch the ominous purport of their words. There were others who went to their beds with a shrug of pretended indifference, feeling glad that for once, at least, their homes were a haven of safety for themselves.

Rocky Springs as a whole knew that something was afoot--some play in which some one was to be worsted, in which, maybe, a life or two would be lost. Anyway, the players were Law _versus_ Outlaw, and those who were not actually concerned with the game felt glad that they still had another night under their own roofs.

It was truly extraordinary how unspoken news spread. It was extraordinary the scent of battle, the scent of a struggle against the law, that was possessed by this people. Everybody seemed to know that to-night something like history was to be made in the annals of the crime of the valley.

So the peace of the valley was almost remarkable. An undoubted air of studied indifference prevailed, but surely it was carefully studied.

Neither Fyles nor any of his police had been seen the whole day. None of them had attended divine service. It was almost as if they had entirely vanished from the precincts of the valley.

So the sun sank, and the ruddy clouds rose up from the west like the fiery splash of the molten contents of the cauldron into which the great ball of fire had plunged. They rose up, and then dispersed, vanishing into thin air, and making way for the soft sheen of a myriad stars, and leaving clear a perfect night for the great summer moon to illuminate.

Two by two a large number of hors.e.m.e.n rode out of the valley of Leaping Creek. Once away from the starting point, their movements, their figures became elusive and shadowy. They pa.s.sed out from among the trees, on to the wide plains above, and each couple split up, taking their individual ways with a certainty which displayed their perfect prairie craft.

Far out into the night they rode, each with clear instructions filling his mind, each with the certainty that one or more of their number must be brought face to face with a crisis before morning, which would need all their nerve and wit to bring to a successful issue.