omething added to their expression--concern and thankfulness.

"God!" he said, after a little space, during which she looked at him
with shining eyes. She no longer gave any thought to Taggart; the
struggle with him was an already fading nightmare in her recollection;
he had been eliminated, destroyed, by the man who stood before her--by
the man whose presence in the kitchen now stirred her to an emotion
that she had never before experienced--by the man who had come back to
her. And that was all that she had cared for--that he would come back.

With a short laugh he released her and stepped over to where Taggart
lay, looking down at him with a cold, satisfied smile.

"I reckon you won't bother nobody any more," he said.

He turned to Betty, the pale stiffness of his lips softening a little
as she smiled at him.

"I want to thank you," he said, "for sendin' Toban after me. He caught
me. I wasn't ridin' so fast an' I heard him comin'. I knowed who it
was, an' stopped to have it out with him. He yelled that he didn't
want me; that you'd sent him after me. We met Dade an' Malcolm--we'd
passed Double Fork an' nothin' was bogged down. So we knowed
somebody'd framed somethin' up. I come on ahead." He grinned.
"Toban's been braggin' some about his horse, but I reckon that don't go
any more. That black horse can run." He indicated Taggart. "I reckon
he come here just to bother you," he said.

She told him about the diagram and he started, stepping quickly to
where Taggart lay, searching in his pockets until he found the paper.

Then he went to the door. Standing in it, he looked as he had looked
that day when he had humiliated Neal Taggart in her presence. The
gentleness which she had seen in him some hours before--and which she
had welcomed--had disappeared; his lips had become stiff and pale
again, his eyes were narrowed and brilliant with the old destroying
fire. She grew rigid and drew a deep, quivering breath, for she saw
that the pistol was still in his hand.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I reckon old Taggart will still be waitin' in the timber grove," he
said with a short, grim laugh. "They've bothered me enough. I'm goin'
to send him where I sent his coyote son."

At that word she was close to him, her hands on his shoulders.

"Don't!" she pleaded; "please don't!" She shuddered and cast a quick,
shrinking glance at the man on the floor. "There has been enough
trouble tonight,"