Like a flash, the terrible
significance of it came upon her. Only by self-violence could she keep
her glance from rising, tell-tale, to the boards above.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," she heard herself saying contritely, all the time
desperately groping to invent a reason; at length, she added futilely:
"I must have scratched you."

Rance looked puzzled, staring at the spatter of red as though
hypnotised.

"No, there's no scratch there," he contended, wiping off the blood with
his handkerchief.

"Oh, yes, there is," insisted the Girl tremulously; "that is, there will
be in the mornin'. You'll see in the mornin' that there'll be--" She
stopped and stared in frozen terror at the sinister face of the Sheriff,
who was coolly watching his handkerchief turn from white to red under
the slow rain of blood from the loft above.

"Oho!" he emitted sardonically, stepping back and pointing his gun
towards the loft. "So, he's up there!"

The Girl's fingers clutched his arm, dragging desperately.

"No, he isn't, Jack--no, he isn't!" she iterated in blind, mechanical
denial.

With an abrupt movement, Rance flung her violently from him, made a grab
at the suspended ladder and lowered it into position; then, deaf to the
Girl's pleadings, harshly ordered Johnson to come down, meanwhile
covering the source of the blood-drops with his gun.

"Oh, wait,--wait a minute!" begged the Girl helplessly. What would
happen if he couldn't obey the summons? He had spent himself in his
climb to safety. Perhaps he was unconscious, slowly bleeding to death!
But even as she tortured herself with fears, the boards above creaked as
though a heavy body was dragging itself slowly across them. Johnson was
evidently doing his best to reach the top of the ladder; but he did not
move quickly enough to suit the Sheriff.

"Come down, or I'll--"

"Oh, just a minute, Jack, just a minute!" broke in the Girl frantically.
"Don't shoot!--Don't you see he's tryin' to--?"

"Come down here, Mr. Johnson!" reiterated the Sheriff, with a face
inhuman as a fiend.

The Girl clenched her hands, heedless of the nails cutting into her
palms: "Won't you wait a moment,--please, wait, Jack!"

"Wait? What for?" the Sheriff flung at her brutally, his finger
twitching on the trigger.

The Girl's lips parted to answer, then closed again dumbly,--for it was
then that she saw the boots, then the legs of the road agent slide
uncertainly through the open trap, fumble clumsily for th