belt buckled about his waist, and a great red silk bandana
knotted at his throat.

He was older by ten years than he had been a few days before, when the
doctor first saw him. To be sure, his appearance was not improved by a
three days' growth of beard. It gave his naturally dark skin a dirty
cast, but even that rough stubble could not completely shroud the new
hollows in Daniels' cheeks. His long, black, uncombed hair, sagged down
raggedly across his forehead, hanging almost into his eyes; the eyes
themselves were sunk in such formidable cavities that Byrne caught
hardly more than two points of light in the shadows. All the
devil-may-care insouciance of Buck Daniels was quite, quite gone. In its
place was a dogged sullenness, a hang-dog air which one would not care
to face of a dark night or in a lonely place. His manner was that of a
man whose back is against the wall, who, having fled some keen pursuit,
has now come to the end of his tether and prepares for desperate even
if hopeless battle. There was that about him which made the doctor
hesitate to address the cowpuncher.

At length he said: "You're going out for an outing, Mr. Daniels?"

Buck Daniels started violently at the sound of this voice behind him,
and whirled upon the doctor with such a set and contorted expression of
fierceness that Byrne jumped back.

"Good God, man!" cried the doctor, "What's up with you?"

"Nothin'," answered Buck, gradually relaxing from his first show of
suspicion. "I'm beating it. That's all."

"Leaving us?"

"Yes."

"Not really!"

"D'you think I ought to stay?" asked Buck, with something of a sneer.

The doctor hesitated, frowning in a puzzled way. At length he threw out
his hands in a gesture of mute abandonment.

"My dear fellow," he said with a faint smile, "I've about stopped trying
to think."

At this Buck Daniels grinned mirthlessly.

"Now you're talkin' sense," he nodded. "They ain't no use in thinking."

"But why do you leave so suddenly?"

Buck Daniels shrugged his broad shoulders.

"I am sure," went on Byrne, "that Miss Cumberland will miss you."

"She will not," answered the big cowpuncher. "She's got her hands full
with--_him_."

"Exactly. But if it is more than she can do, if she makes no headway
with that singular fellow--she may need help----"

He was interrupted by a slow, long-drawn, deep-throated curse from Buck
Daniels.

"Why in hell should I help her with--_him?_"

"There is really no