rry.

Ay, there had been fear in it. Every day at the ranch he had shuddered
at the thought that the destroyer might ride up on that devil of black
silken grace, Satan. But every day he had convinced himself that even
then Dan Barry remembered the past and was cursing himself for the
ingratitude he had shown his old friend. Now the truth swept coldly home
to Buck Daniels. Barry was as fierce as ever upon the trail; and Kate
Cumberland thought that he--Buck Daniels,--had fled like a cur from
danger.

He seized his head between his hands and beat his knuckles against the
corrugated flesh of his forehead. She had thought that!

Desire for action, action, action, beset him like thirst. To close with
this devil, this wolf-man, to set his big fingers in the smooth, almost
girlish throat, to choke the yellow light out of those eyes--or else to
die, but like a man proving his manhood before the girl.

He read the letter again and then in an agony he crumpled it to a ball
and hurled it across the room. Catching up his hat and his belt he
rushed wildly from the room, thundered down the crazy stairs, and out to
the stable.

Long Bess, the tall, bay mare which had carried him through three years
of adventure and danger and never failed him yet, raised her
aristocratic head above the side of the stall and whinnied. For answer
he shook his fist at her and cursed insanely.

The saddle he jerked by one stirrup leather from the wall and flung it
on her back, and when she cringed to the far side of the stall, he
cursed her again, bitterly, and drew up the cinch with a lunge that made
her groan. He did not wait to lead her to the door before mounting, but
sprang into the saddle.

Here he whirled her about and drove home the spurs. Cruel usage, for
Long Bess had never denied him the utmost of her speed and strength at
the mere sound of his voice. Now, half-mad with fear and surprise, she
sprang forward at full gallop, slipped and almost sprawled on the floor,
and then thundered out of the door.

At once the soft sandy-soil received and deadened the impact of her
hoofs. Off she flew through the grey of the morning, soundless as a
racing ghost.

Long Bess--there was good blood in her. She was as delicately limbed as
an antelope, and her heart was as strong as the smooth muscles of her
shoulders and hips. Yet to Buck Daniels her fastest gait seemed slower
than a walk. Already his thoughts were flying far before. Already he
stood b