moothed out, he can expect me for a
boarder. I'm going to make him one nice long visit."

Practically all of her time away from the Three Bar had been spent with
Judge Colton's family and she was accepted as part of the household.
It was there she had met Deane and those others to whom her messages
were sent.

Through an opening in the dancing throng Deane suddenly had a clear
view of the open rear door--one brief glimpse before the crowd closed
once more and shut off his view. He had an idea that he had seen a
face, hazy and indistinct, a few feet outside the door. He wondered if
it could be the friend for whom Harris had searched.

"Make the visit soon, Billie," he urged. "It's been a long month since
we've had you with us. We thought maybe you'd deserted us back there.
How soon will this visit start--and how long will it last?"

"It will start as soon as the Three Bar doesn't need me," she said.
"And last a long time."

Again a lane opened through the crowd, affording a view of the door.
Deane saw the face outside in the night, and a foot or more below if
some bright object glinted in the dim light which filtered through.
The music ceased and the chant of the roulette croupier began, mingling
with the smooth purr of the ivory ball. There came a sudden hush from
the vicinity of the rear door, a hush that spread rapidly throughout
the room, so swift are the perceptions of a frontier gathering.

Old Rile Foster stood just inside, his gun half-raised before him.
Canfield and Lang stood together in the center of the floor, apart from
the rest and with no others in line beyond them. Rile tossed a boot
heel on to the floor and as it rolled toward the two men he shot
Canfield through the chest. Lang's gun crashed almost with his own.
Rile's knees sagged under him and he pitched face down on the floor,
his arms sprawled out before him.

The surge of the crowd, pressing back out of line, threw the albino on
the edge of it, his big form towering alone.

The old man raised his head from the floor and crooked his wrist with
the last of his ebbing strength.

"Four for Bangs," he said, and shot Harper between the eyes.

XI

The two loggers had finished cutting their quota of timber for the
homestead cabins and the white peeled logs lay piled and ready to be
snaked down to the Three Bar on the first heavy snows of fall. The
choppers had transferred their operations to the lower broken slopes
which they s