icize.

"It was bluff. I saw that Landis was big and good-looking. And what was
I beside him? Nothing. I could only hope that he was hollow; yellow--you
see? So I tried the bluff. You know about it. The clock, and all that
claptrap. But Landis wasn't yellow. He didn't crumble. He lasted long
enough to call my bluff, and I had to shoot in self-defense. And then,
when he lay on the floor, I saw that I had failed."

"Failed?"

He lowered his eyes for fear that she would catch the glitter of them.

"I knew that you would hate me for what I had done because I had only
proved that Landis was a brave youngster with enough nerve for nine out
of ten. And I came tonight--to ask you to forgive me. No, not that--only
to ask you to understand. Do you?"

He raised his glance suddenly at that, and their eyes met with one of
these electric shocks which will go tingling through two people. And
when the lips of Nelly Lebrun parted a little, he knew that she was in
the trap. He closed his hand that lay on the table--curling the fingers
slowly. In that way he expressed all his exultation.

"There is something wrong," said the girl, in a tone of one who argues
with herself. "It's all too logical to be real."

"Ah?"

"Was that your only reason for fighting Jack Landis?"

"Do I have to confess even that?"

She smiled in the triumph of her penetration, but it was a brief,
unhappy smile. One might have thought that she would have been glad to
be deceived.

"I came to serve a girl who was unhappy," said Donnegan. "Her fiance had
left her; her fiance was Jack Landis. And she's now in a hut up the hill
waiting for him. And I thought that if I ruined him in your eyes he'd go
back to a girl who wouldn't care so much about bravery. Who'd forgive
him for having left her. But you see what a fool I was and how clumsily
I worked? My bluff failed, and I only wounded him, put him in your
house, under your care, where he'll be happiest, and where there'll
never be a chance for this girl to get him back."

Nelly Lebrun, with her folded hands under her chin, studied him.

"Mr. Donnegan," she said, "I wish I knew whether you are the most
chivalrous, self-sacrificing of men, or simply the most gorgeous liar in
the desert."

"And it's hardly fair," said Donnegan, "to expect me to tell you that."

28

It gave them both a welcome opportunity to laugh, welcome to the girl
because it broke into an excitement which was rapidly telling upon