at aloud--to make his own
soul hear that aloud!

"_Your_ sweetheart? ... Little Lucy--of your boyhood--you told me
about?"

Pan was confronted now by something terrible. He had sought to make
this girl betray herself, if she had anything to betray. But this
Medusa face! Those awful eyes!

"Yes, Lucy, I told you," he said, reaching for her. "He forced her to
marry him. They had Lucy's father in jail. Dick got him out. Oh, it
was all a scheme to work on the poor girl. She thought it was to save
her father.... Why, Dick paid her father. I made him tell me... yes,
Dick Hardman in his frock coat and high hat! But when I drove him out
to get his gun, he forgot that high hat."

"Ah! His high hat!"

"Yes, it's out in the street now. The wind blew it over where I killed
Matthews. Funny! ... And Louise, I'm going to kill Dick Hardman, too."

"Like hell you are!" she hissed, and leaped swiftly to snatch something
from under the pillow.

Pan started back, thinking that she meant to attack him. How
tigerishly she bounded! Her white arm swept aside red curtains. They
hid a shallow closet. It seemed her white shape flashed in and out. A
hard choking gasp! Could that have come from her? Pan did not see her
drawn lips move. Something hard dropped to the floor with metallic
sound.

The hall door opened with a single sweep. Blinky stood framed there,
wild eyed. And the next instant Dick Hardman staggered from that
closet. He had both hands pressed to his abdomen. Blood poured out in
a stream. Pan heard strange watery sounds. Hardman reeled out into
the hall, groaning. He slipped along the wall. Pan leaped, to see him
slide down into a widening pool of blood.

It was a paralyzing moment. But Pan recovered first. The girl swayed
with naked arms outstretched against the wall. On her white wrist
showed a crimson blot. Pan looked no more. Snatching a blanket off
the bed he threw it round her, wrapped it tight, and lifted her in his
arms.

"Blink, go ahead," he whispered, as he went into the hall. "Hurry!
Shoot out the lights! Go through the dance hall!"

The cowboy seemed galvanized into action. He leaped over Hardman's
body, huddled and lax, and down the hall, pulling his guns.

Pan edged round the body on the floor. He saw a ghastly
face--protruding eyes. And on the instant, like lightning, came the
thought that Lucy was free. Almost immediately thundering shots filled
the saloon.