hey had seated themselves on this, and were now in earnest
conversation. Talbot stood at the window and watched them with a dry
smile. He could tell their talk almost from their expressions and their
gestures. It was one thing to come up and bluff a man out of his
property, and walk in and take it as he walked out; and another to force
a narrow tunnel against the straight, steady fire of a fearless devil
like this. They could overpower him in the end, there was no doubt of
that; but then when they walked in it would be over his dead body, that
was clear, and several others besides him, for he was known to be the
quickest, straightest shot in the district, and could certainly get away
with some of them. It was this part they did not like, for each man felt
he might be the one to be picked off and stretched stiff in the tunnel.
So there was considerable parleying and hesitation amongst them, and
Talbot stood motionless at the window watching them as they sat there,
and noting the length of their six-shooters that dangled down the sides
of their legs. At last there was a concerted movement amongst them: they
got up with one accord, and without another glance at the cabin walked
slowly away across the plateau in front of the house and round the
corner of it towards the town trail, the way they had come. Talbot
watched them disappear in the grey light of the gulch with surprise, and
then drew a deep breath. He hardly knew whether he felt relieved or
disappointed. His blood was up then, and he would have liked to send a
bullet through a few of them. He roamed about restlessly for some time,
and went to the back of the house to a little square window, and from
there watched the last of them mount the trail and disappear from the
gulch. Then all was silence and solitude again, in the swiftly falling
darkness. He turned into his sitting-room, and stirred the fire into a
blaze and lighted up the lamps--his lamps always burned well and
brightly, being kept scientifically clean and trimmed with his own
hands,--then he flung himself into a chair and sat there gazing into the
flames, his revolver beside him on the table. He half expected the men
to return, and his ears remained attentive to the slightest sound
without. But there was nothing, absolute stillness reigned all around
him; not a crackle of the frosted snow nor the fall of a leaf broke the
grave-like silence.

When the other two came in, he told his afternoon's adventure in