The six-o'clock was an hour and thirty minutes late. For two hours Sheila Langford had been on the station platform awaiting its coming. For a full half hour she had stood at one corner of the platform straining her eyes to watch a thin skein of smoke that trailed off down the horizon, but which told her that the train was coming. It crawled slowly--like a huge serpent--over the wilderness of s.p.a.ce, growing always larger, steaming its way through the golden sunshine of the afternoon, and after a time, with a grinding of brakes and the shrill hiss of escaping air, it drew alongside the station platform.

A brakeman descended, the conductor strode stiffly to the telegrapher's window, two trunks came out of the baggage car, and a tall man of fifty alighted and was folded into Sheila's welcoming arms. For a moment the two stood thus, while the pa.s.sengers smiled sympathetically. Then the man held Sheila off at arm's length and looked searchingly at her.

"Crying?" he said. "What a welcome!"

"Oh, daddy!" said Sheila. In this moment she was very near to telling him what had happened to her on the day of her arrival at Lazette, but she felt that it was impossible with him looking at her; she could not at a blow cast a shadow over the joy of his first day in the country where, henceforth, he was to make his home. And so she stood sobbing softly on his shoulder while he, aware of his inability to cope with anything so mysterious as a woman's tears, caressed her gently and waited patiently for her to regain her composure.

"Then nothing happened to you after all," he laughed, patting her cheeks.

"Nothing, in spite of my croaking."

"Nothing," she answered. The opportunity was gone now; she was committed irrevocably to her secret.

"You like it here? Duncan has made himself agreeable?"

"It is a beautiful country, though a little lonesome after--after Albany.

I miss my friends, of course. But Duncan's sister has done her best, and I have been able to get along."

The engine bell clanged and they stood side by side as the train pulled slowly away from the platform. Langford solemnly waved a farewell to it.

"This is the moment for which I have been looking for months," he said, with what, it seemed to Sheila, was almost a sigh of relief. He turned to her with a smile. "I will look after the baggage," he said, and leaving her he approached the station agent and together they examined the trunks which had come out of the baggage car.

Sheila watched him while he engaged in this task. His face seemed a trifle drawn; he had aged much during the month that she had been separated from him. The lines of his face had grown deeper; he seemed, now that she saw him at a distance, to be care-worn--tired. She had heard people call him a hard man; she knew that business a.s.sociates had complained of what they were pleased to call his "sharp methods"; it had even been hinted that his "methods" were irregular.

It made no difference to her, however, what people thought of him, or what they said of him, he had been a kind and indulgent parent to her and she supposed that in business it was everybody's business to look sharply after their own interests. For there were jealous people everywhere; envy stalks rampant through the world; failure cavils at mediocrity, mediocrity sneers at genius. And Sheila had always considered her father a genius, and the carping of those over whom her father had ridden roughshod had always sounded in her ears like tributes.

As quite unconsciously we are p.r.o.ne to place the interests of self above considerations for the comfort and the convenience of others, so Sheila had grown to judge her father through the medium of his treatment of her.

Her own father--who had died during her infancy--could not have treated her better than had Langford. Since her mother's death some years before, Langford had been both father and mother to her, and her affection for him had flourished in the sunshine of his. No matter what other people thought, she was satisfied with him.

As a matter of fact David Dowd Langford allowed no one--not even Sheila--to look into his soul. What emotions slumbered beneath the mask of his habitual imperturbability no one save Langford himself knew. During all his days he had successfully fought against betraying his emotions and now, at the age of fifty, there was nothing of his character revealed in his face except sternness. If addicted to sharp practice in business no one would be likely to suspect it, not even his victim. Could one have looked steadily into his eyes one might find there a certain gleam to warn one of trickery, only one would not be able to look steadily into them, for the reason that they would not allow you. They were shifty, crafty eyes that took one's measure when one least expected them to do so.

Over the motive which had moved her father to retire from business while still in his prime Sheila did not speculate. Nor had she speculated when he had bought the Double R ranch and announced his intention to spend the remainder of his days on it. She supposed that he had grown tired of the unceasing bustle and activity of city life, as had she, and longed for something different, and she had been quite as eager as he to take up her residence here. This had been the limit of her conjecturing.

He had told her when she left Albany that he would follow her in a month.

And therefore, in a month to the day, knowing his habit of punctuality, Sheila had come to Lazette for him, having been driven over from the Double R by one of the cowboys.

She saw the station agent now, beckoning to the driver of the wagon, and she went over to the edge of the station platform and watched while the trunks were tumbled into the wagon.

The driver was grumbling good naturedly to Langford.

"That darned six-o'clock train is always late," he was saying. "It's a quarter to eight now an' the sun is goin' down. If that train had been on time we could have made part of the trip in the daylight."

The day had indeed gone. Sheila looked toward the mountains and saw that great long shadows were lengthening from their bases; the lower half of the sun had sunk behind a distant peak; the quiet colors of the sunset were streaking the sky and glowing over the plains.

The trunks were in; the station agent held the horses by the bridles, quieting them; the driver took up the reins; Sheila was helped to the seat by her father, he jumped in himself, and they were off down the street, toward a dim trail that led up a slope that began at the edge of town and melted into s.p.a.ce.

The town seemed deserted. Sheila saw a man standing near the front door of a saloon, his hands on his hips. He did not appear interested in either the wagon or its occupants; his gaze roved up and down the street and he nervously fingered his cartridge belt. He was a brown-skinned man, almost olive, Sheila thought as her gaze rested on him, attired after the manner of the country, with leathern chaps, felt hat, boots, spurs, neckerchief.

"Why, it is sundown already!" Sheila heard her father say. "What a sudden change! A moment ago the light was perfect!"

A subconscious sense only permitted Sheila to hear her father's voice, for her thoughts and eyes were just then riveted on another man who had come out of the door of another saloon a little way down the street. She recognized the man as Dakota and exclaimed sharply.

She felt her father turn; heard the driver declare, "It's comin' off,"

though she had not the slightest idea of his meaning. Then she realized that he had halted the horses; saw that he had turned in his seat and was watching something to the rear of them intently.

"We're out of range," she heard him say, speaking to her father.

"What's wrong?" This was her father's voice.

"Dakota an' Blanca are havin' a run-in," announced the driver. "Dakota's give Blanca till sundown to get out of town. It's sundown now an' Blanca ain't pulled his freight, an' it's likely that h.e.l.l will be a-poppin'

sorta sudden."

Sheila cowered in her seat, half afraid to look at Dakota--who was walking slowly toward the man who still stood in front of the saloon--though in spite of her fears and misgivings the fascination of the scene held her gaze steadily on the chief actors.

Out of the corners of her eyes she could see that far down the street men were congregated; they stood in doorways, at convenient corners, their eyes directed toward Dakota and the other man. In the sepulchral calm which had fallen there came to Sheila's ears sounds that in another time she would not have noticed. Somewhere a door slammed; there came to her ears the barking of a dog, the neigh of a horse--sharply the sounds smote the quiet atmosphere, they seemed odd to the point of unreality.

However, the sounds did not long distract her attention from the chief actors in the scene which was being worked out in front of her; the noises died away and she gave her entire attention to the men. She saw Dakota reach a point about thirty feet from the man in front of the saloon--Blanca. As Dakota continued to approach, Sheila observed an evil smile flash suddenly to Blanca's face; saw a glint of metal in the faint light; heard the crash of his revolver; shuddered at the flame spurt. She expected to see Dakota fall--hoped that he might. Instead, she saw him smile--in much the fashion in which he had smiled that night in the cabin when he had threatened to shoot the parson if she did not consent to marry him. And then his hand dropped swiftly to the b.u.t.t of the pistol at his right hip.

Sheila's eyes closed; she swayed and felt her father's arm come out and grasp her to keep her from falling. But she was not going to fall; she had merely closed her eyes to blot out the scene which she could not turn from. She held her breath in an agony of suspense, and it seemed an age until she heard a crashing report--and then another. Then silence.

Unable longer to resist looking, Sheila opened her eyes. She saw Dakota walk forward and stand over Blanca, looking down at him, his pistol still in hand. Blanca was face down in the dust of the street, and as Dakota stood over him Sheila saw the half-breed's body move convulsively and then become still. Dakota sheathed his weapon and, without looking toward the wagon in which Sheila sat, turned and strode unconcernedly down the street. A man came out of the door of the saloon in front of which Blanca's body lay, looking down at it curiously. Other men were running toward the spot; there were shouts, oaths.

For the first time in her life Sheila had seen a man killed--murdered--and there came to her a recollection of Dakota's words that night in the cabin: "Have you ever seen a man die?" She had surmised from his manner that night that he would not hesitate to kill the parson, and now she knew that her sacrifice had not been made in vain. A sob shook her, the world reeled, blurred, and she covered her face with her hands.

"Oh!" she said in a strained, hoa.r.s.e voice. "Oh! The brute!"

"Hey!" From a great distance the driver's voice seemed to come. "Hey!

What's that? Well, mebbe. But I reckon Blanca won't rustle any more cattle." "G.o.d!" he added in an awed voice; "both of them hit him!"

Blanca was dead then, there could be no doubt of that. Sheila felt herself swaying and tried to grasp the end of the seat to steady herself. She heard her father's voice raised in alarm, felt his arm come out again and grasp her, and then darkness settled around her.

When she recovered consciousness her father's arms were still around her and the buckboard was in motion. Dusk had come; above her countless stars flickered in the deep blue of the sky.

"I reckon she's plum shocked," she heard the driver say.

"I don't wonder," returned Langford, and Sheila felt a shiver run over him. "Great guns!" Sheila wondered at the tone he used. "That man is a marvel with a pistol! Did you notice how cool he took it?"

"Cool!" The driver laughed. "If you get acquainted with Dakota you'll find out that he's cool. He's an iceberg, that's what he is!"

"They'll arrest him, I suppose?" queried Langford.

"Arrest him! What for? Didn't he give Blanca his chance? That's why I'm tellin' you he's cool!"

It was past two o'clock when the buckboard pulled up at the Double R corral gates and Langford helped Sheila down. She was still pale and trembling and did not remain downstairs to witness her father's introduction to Duncan's sister, but went immediately to her room. Sleep was far from her, however, for she kept dwelling over and over on the odd fortune which had killed Blanca and allowed Dakota to live, when the latter's death would have brought to an end the distasteful relationship which his freakish impulse had forced upon her.

She remembered Dakota's words in the cabin. Was Fate indeed running this game--if game it might be called?