buckled it about her. Lee Haines and Daniels, without a word, imitated
her actions. Their guns were already on--every moment since they reached
the ranch they had gone armed but now they looked to them, and tried the
actions a few times before they thrust them back into the holsters.

It was odd to watch them. They were like the last remnant of a garrison,
outworn with fighting, which prepares in grim quiet for the final stand.

The whistling rose a little in volume now. It was a happy sound, without
a recognizable tune, but a gay, wild improvisation as if a violinist,
drunk, was remembering snatches of masterpieces, throwing out lovely
fragments here and there and filling the intervals out of his own
excited fancy. Joan ran to the window, forgetful of the puppy, and
kneeled there in the chair, looking out. The whistling stopped as Kate
drew down the curtain to cut out Joan's view. It was far too dark for
the child to see out, but she often would sit like this, looking into
the dark.

The whistling began again as Joan turned silently on her mother,
uncomplaining, but with a singular glint in her eyes, a sort of
flickering, inward light that came out by glances and starts. Now the
sound of the rider blew closer and closer. Kate gestured the men to
their positions, one for each of the two inner doors while she herself
took the outer one. There was not a trace of color in her face, but
otherwise she was as calm as a stone, and from her an atmosphere
pervaded the room, so that men also stood quietly at their posts,
without a word, without a sign to each other. They had their unspoken
order from Kate. She would resist to the death and she expected the same
from them. They were prepared.

Still that crescendo of the whistling continued; it seemed as if it
would never reach them; it grew loud as a bird singing in that very
room, and still it continued to swell, increase--then suddenly went
out. As if it were the signal for which she had been waiting all these
heartbreaking moments, Kate opened the front door, ran quickly down the
hall, and stood an instant later on the path in front of the house. She
had locked the doors as she went through, and now she heard one of the
men rattling the lock to follow her. The rattling ceased. Evidently they
decided that they would hold the fort as they were.

Her heel hardly sank in the sand when she saw him. He came out of the
night like a black shadow among shadows, with the speed of th