"Off my trail," said the parson. "I'm travelin' to Lazette." He laughed, shortly. "I'm askin' your pardon, ma'am, for takin' you to be married; you don't look like you belonged here--I ought to have knowed that right off."

Sheila told him that he was forgiven and he had no comment to make on this, but looked at her appraisingly. He drew a bench up near the fire and sat looking at the licking flames, the heat drawing the steam from his clothing as the latter dried. Dakota supplied him with soda biscuit and cold bacon, and these he munched in contentment, talking meanwhile of his travels. Several times while he sat before the fire Dakota spoke to him, and finally he pulled his chair over near the wall opposite the bunk on which Sheila sat, tilted it back, and dropped into it, stretching out comfortably.

After seating himself, Dakota's gaze sought Sheila. It was evident to Sheila that he was thinking pleasant thoughts, for several times she looked quickly at him to catch him smiling. Once she met his gaze fairly and was certain that she saw a crafty, calculating gleam in his eyes. She was puzzled, though there was nothing of fear from Dakota now; the presence of the parson in the cabin a.s.sured her of safety.

A half hour dragged by. The parson did not appear to be sleepy. Sheila glanced at her watch and saw that it was midnight. She wondered much at the parson's wakefulness and her own weariness. But she could safely go to sleep now, she told herself, and she stretched noiselessly out on the bunk and with one arm bent under her head listened to the parson.

Evidently the parson was itinerant; he spoke of many places--Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Texas; of towns in New Mexico. To Sheila, her senses dulled by the drowsiness that was stealing over her, it appeared that the parson was a foe to Science. His volubility filled the cabin; he contended sonorously that the earth was not round. The Scriptures, he maintained, held otherwise. He called Dakota's attention to the seventh chapter of Revelation, verse one:

"And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree."

Several times Sheila heard Dakota laugh, mockingly; he was skeptical, caustic even, and he took issue with the parson. Between them they managed to prevent her falling asleep; kept her in a semidoze which was very near to complete wakefulness.

After a time, though, the argument grew monotonous; the droning of their voices seemed gradually to grow distant; Sheila lost interest in the conversation and sank deeper into her doze. How long she had been unconscious of them she did not know, but presently she was awake again and listening. Dakota's laugh had awakened her. Out of the corners of her eyes she saw that he was still seated in the chair beside the wall and that his eyes were alight with interest as he watched the parson.

"So you're going to Lazette, taking it on to him?"

The parson nodded, smiling. "When a man wants to get married he'll not care much about the arrangements--how it gets done. What he wants to do is to get married."

"That's a queer angle," Dakota observed. He laughed immoderately.

The parson laughed with him. It _was_ an odd situation, he agreed. Never, in all his experience, had he heard of anything like it.

He had stopped for a few hours at Dry Bottom. While there a rider had pa.s.sed through, carrying word that a certain man in Lazette, called "Baldy," desired to get married. There was no minister in Lazette, not even a justice of the peace. But Baldy wanted to be married, and his bride-to-be objected to making the trip to Dry Bottom, where there were both a parson and a justice of the peace. Therefore, failing to induce the lady to go to the parson, it followed that Baldy must contrive to have the parson come to the lady. He dispatched the rider to Dry Bottom on this quest.

The rider had found that there was no regular parson in Dry Bottom and that the justice of the peace had departed the day before to some distant town for a visit. Luckily for Baldy's matrimonial plans, the parson had been in Dry Bottom when the rider arrived, and he readily consented--as he intended to pa.s.s through Lazette anyway--to carry Baldy's license to him and perform the ceremony.

"Odd, ain't it?" remarked the parson, after he had concluded.

"That's a queer angle," repeated Dakota. "You got the license?" he inquired softly. "Mebbe you've lost it."

"I reckon not." The parson fumbled in a pocket, drawing out a folded paper. "I've got it, right enough."

"You've got no objections to me looking at it?" came Dakota's voice.

Sheila saw him rise. There was a strange smile on his face.

"No objections. I reckon you'll be usin' one yourself one of these days."

"One of these days," echoed Dakota with a laugh as strange as his smile a moment before. "Yes--I'm thinking of using one one of these days."

The parson spread the paper out on the table. Together he and Dakota bent their heads over it. After reading the license Dakota stood erect. He laughed, looking at the parson.

"There ain't a name on it," he said, "not a name."

"They're reckonin' to fill in the names when they're married," explained the parson. "That there rider ought to have knowed the names, but he didn't. Only knowed that the man was called 'Baldy.' Didn't know the bride's name at all. But it don't make any difference; they wouldn't have had to have a license at all in this Territory. But it makes it look more regular when they've got one. All that's got to be done is for Baldy to go over to Dry Bottom an' have the names recorded. Bein' as I can't go, I'm to certify in the license."

"Sure," said Dakota slowly. "It makes things more regular to have a license--more regular to have you certify."

Looking at Dakota, Sheila thought she saw in his face a certain preoccupation; he was evidently not thinking of what he was saying at all; the words had come involuntarily, automatically almost, it seemed, so inexpressive were they. "Sure," he repeated, "you're to certify, in the license."

It was as though he were reading aloud from a printed page, his thoughts elsewhere, and seeing only the words and uttering them unconsciously. Some idea had formed in his brain, he meditated some surprising action. That she was concerned in his thoughts Sheila did not doubt, for he presently turned and looked straight at her and in his eyes she saw a new expression--a cold, designing gleam that frightened her.

Five minutes later, when the parson announced his intention to care for his horse before retiring and stood in the doorway preparatory to going out, Sheila restrained an impulse to call to him to remain. She succeeded in quieting her fears, however, by a.s.suring herself that nothing could happen now, with the parson so near. Thus fortified, she smiled at Dakota as the parson stepped down and closed the door.

She drew a startled breath in the next instant, though, for without noticing her smile Dakota stepped to the door and barred it. Turning, he stood with his back against it, his lips in straight, hard lines, his eyes steady and gleaming brightly.

He caught Sheila's gaze and held it; she trembled and sat erect.

"It's odd, ain't it?" he said, in the mocking voice that he had used when using the same words earlier in the evening.

"What is odd?" Hers was the same answer that she had used before, too--she could think of nothing else to say.

"Odd that he should come along just at this time." He indicated the door through which the parson had disappeared. "You and me are here, and he comes. Who sent him?"

"Chance, I suppose," Sheila answered, though she could feel that there was a subtle undercurrent in his speech, and she felt again the strange unrest that had affected her several times before.

"You think it was chance," he said, drawling his words. "Well, maybe that's just as good a name for it as any other. But we don't all see things the same way, do we? We couldn't, of course, because we've all got different things to do. We think this is a big world and that we play a big game. But it's a little world and a little game when Fate takes a hand in it. I told you a while ago that Fate had a queer way of shuffling us around. That's a fact. And Fate is running this game." His mocking laugh had a note of grimness in it, which brought a chill over Sheila. "Just now, Miss Sheila, Fate is playing with brides and bridegrooms and marriages and parsons. That's what is so odd. Fate has supplied the parson and the license; we'll supply the names. Look at the bridegroom, Sheila,"

he directed, tapping his breast with a finger; "this is your wedding day!"

"What do you mean?" Sheila was on her feet, trembling, her face white with fear and dread.

"That we're to be married," he said, smiling at her, and she noted with a qualm that there was no mirth in the smile, "you and me. The parson will tie the knot."

"This is a joke, I suppose?" she said scornfully, attempting a lightness that she did not feel; "a crude one, to be sure, for you certainly cannot be serious."

"I was never more serious in my life," he said slowly. "We are to be married when the parson comes in."

"How do you purpose to accomplish this?" she jeered. "The parson certainly will not perform a marriage ceremony without the consent of--without my consent."

"I think," he said coldly, "that you will consent. I am not in a trifling mood. Just now it pleases me to imagine that I am an instrument of Fate.

Maybe that sounds mysterious to you, but some day you will be able to see just how logical it all seems to me now, that Fate has sent me a p.a.w.n--a subject, if you please--to sacrifice, that the game which I have been playing may be carried to its conclusion."

Outside they heard the dog bark, heard the parson speak to it.

"The parson is coming," said Sheila, her joy over the impending interruption showing in her eyes.

"Yes, he is coming." Still with his back to the door, Dakota deliberately drew out one of his heavy pistols and examined it minutely, paying no attention to Sheila. Her eyes widened with fear as the hand holding the weapon dropped to his side and he looked at her again.

"What are you doing to do?" she demanded, watching these forbidding preparations with dilated eyes.

"That depends," he returned with a chilling laugh. "Have you ever seen a man die? No?" he continued as she shuddered. "Well, if you don't consent to marry me you will see the parson die. I have decided to give you the choice, ma'am," he went on in a quiet, determined voice, entirely free from emotion. "Sacrifice yourself and the parson lives; refuse and I shoot the parson down the instant he steps inside the door."

"Oh!" she cried in horror, taking a step toward him and looking into his eyes for evidence of insincerity--for the slightest sign that would tell her that he was merely trying to scare her. "Oh! you--you coward!" she cried, for she saw nothing in his eyes but cold resolution.

He smiled with straight lips. "You see," he mocked, "how odd it is? Fate is shuffling us three in this game. You have your choice. Do you care to be responsible for the death of a fellow being?"

For a tense instant she looked at him, and seeing the hard, inexorable glitter in his eyes she cringed away from him and sank to the edge of the bunk, covering her face with her hands.