ve another fight on our hands
if we do. Those fellows, this deep in it, are not going to quit while
they know that there's all that money in the shack!"

"I don't care," said Judith firmly. "I won't run from them or anybody
else I know! And, besides, Bud Lee, I am not going to give them the
chance to get Crowdy away. . . . Do you think he is going to die?"

"No, I don't. Doc Tripp will fix him up."

"Then here I stay, for one. When I go, Bill Crowdy goes with me! He's
going to talk, and he's going to help me send Bayne Trevors to the pen."

Bud Lee expressed all he had to say in a silent whistle. He'd made
another mistake, that was all. Judith wasn't going to faint for him
to-night.

"Then," he said presently, setting her the example, "slip some fresh
cartridges into your rifle and get ready for more shooting. I'll put
out the light and we'll wait for what's next."

Judith replenished the magazine of her rifle. Lee, watching from under
the low-drawn brim of his hat, noted that her fingers were steady now.
Crowdy moved on his bunk, lifted a hand weakly, groaned, and grew
still. Presently he stirred again, asking weakly for water.

Lee went to the water-bucket standing in a corner. It happened to be
half full. He filled a cup, and lifting Crowdy's head, held it to the
fevered lips.

"Not exactly what you'd call fresh, is it, Crowdy?" he said lightly.
"But the spring's outside and I'm scared to go out in the dark."

Crowdy drank thirstily and lay back, his eyes closed again. Lee
rearranged his bandage.

"Put out the light now?" he asked Judith.

"No," she answered. "What's the use, Bud? There are no holes in the
walls they could stick a gun-barrel through, are there?"

No one knew better than he that there were not.

"You see," said Judith, with a half-smile, heroically assumed, "I'm a
little afraid of the dark, too! Anyway, since we've got to spend the
night with a man in Crowdy's shape, it will be more cosey, won't it,
with the light on?"

She even put out her hand to one of the books on the shelves which she
could reach from her bench.

"And now," she added, "I'm sure that our hermit won't mind if we peep
into his library, will he?"

"No," answered Lee gravely. "Most likely he'll be proud."

Lee found time to muse that life is made of incongruities, woman of
inconsistencies. Here with a badly hurt man lying ten feet from her,
with every likelihood of the night stillness being rip