rs. She repeated his name in an ecstasy of welcome,
drew down his lips, laughed, rejoiced, knew no shamefacedness and no
restraint--she was one freed from the stroke of a descending knife. A
moment before she had faced death alone; it was still death she
faced--she realized this--but it was death, at least, together, and
her joy and tears rose from her heart in one stream.

De Spain comforted her, quieted her, cut away one of the coats from
his horse, slipped it over her shoulders, incased her in the heavy
fur, and turned his eyes to Duke.

The old man's set, square face surrendered nothing of implacability
to the dangers confronting him. De Spain looked for none of that. He
had known the Morgan record too long, and faced the Morgan men too
often, to fancy they would flinch at the drum-beat of death.

The two men, in the deadly, driving snow, eyed each other. Out of the
old man's deep-set eyes burned the resistance of a hundred storms
faced before. But he was caught now like a wolf in a trap, and he knew
he had little to hope for, little to fear. As de Spain regarded him,
something like pity may have mixed with his hatred. The old outlaw was
thinly clad. His open throat was beaten with snow and, standing beside
the wagon, he held the team reins in a bare hand. De Spain cut the
other coat from his saddle and held it out. Duke pretended not to see
and, when not longer equal to keeping up the pretense, shook his
head.

"Take it," said de Spain curtly.

"No."

"Take it, I say. You and I will settle our affairs when we get Nan out
of this," he insisted.

"De Spain!" Duke's voice, as was its wont, cracked like a pistol, "I
can say all I've got to say to you right here."

"No."

"Yes," cried the old man.

"Listen, Henry," pleaded Nan, seeking shelter from the furious blast
within his arm, "just for a moment, listen!"

"Not now, I tell you!" cried de Spain.

"He was coming, Henry, all the way--and he is sick--just to say it to
you. Let him say it here, now."

"Go on!" cried de Spain roughly. "Say it."

"I'm not afraid of you, de Spain!" shouted the old man, his neck bared
to the flying ice. "Don't think it! You're a better man than I am,
better than I ever was--don't think I don't know that. But I'm not
afraid of e'er a man I faced, de Spain; they'll tell you that when I'm
dead. All the trouble that ever come 'tween you and me come by an
accident--come before you was born, and come through Dave Sassoon, and