turned
towards him, he saw the old man sitting erect, with an expression of
wild triumph. There came an indescribable cry from the girl, and a deep
throated curse from Buck Daniels as he slammed down the window.

With the chill blast shut off and the flame burning steadily once more
in the lamp, a great silence besieged the room, with a note of
expectancy in it. Byrne was conscious of being warm, too warm. It was
close in the room, and he was weighted down. It was as if another
presence had stepped into the room and stood invisible. He felt it with
unspeakable keenness, as when one knows certainly the thoughts which
pass in the mind of another. And, more than that, he knew that the
others in the room felt what he felt. In the waiting silence he saw that
the old man lay on his couch with eyes of fire and gaping lips, as if
he drank the wine of his joyous expectancy. And big Buck Daniels stood
with his hand on the sash of the window, frozen there, his eyes bulging,
his heart thundering in his throat. And Kate Cumberland sat with her
eyes closed, as she had closed them when the wind first rushed upon her,
and she still smiled as she had smiled then. And to Byrne, more terrible
than the joy of Joseph Cumberland or the dread of Buck Daniels was the
smile and the closed eyes of the girl.

But the silence held and the fifth presence was in the room, and not one
of them dared speak.

CHAPTER VI

THE MISSION STARTS

Then, with a shifting of the wind, a song was blown to them from the
bunk-house, a cheerful, ringing chorus; the sound was like daylight--it
drove the terror from the room. Joe Cumberland asked them to leave him.
That night, he said, he would sleep. He felt it, like a promise. The
other three went out from the room.

In the hall Kate and Daniels stood close together under a faint light
from the wall-lamp, and they talked as if they had forgotten the
presence of Byrne.

"It had to come," she said. "I knew it would come to him sooner or
later, but I didn't dream it would be as terrible as this. Buck, what
are we going to do?"

"God knows," said the big cowpuncher. "Just wait, I s'pose, same as
we've been doing."

He had aged wonderfully in that moment of darkness.

"He'll be happy now for a few days," went on the girl, "but
afterwards--when he realises that it means nothing--what then, Buck?"

The man took her hands and began to pat them softly as a father might
soothe a child.

"I seen you wh