mbed comprehension.

"What I said," he answered as quietly, "I'd alter for no man. My
opinions are my own."

He turned and passed outside.

For longer than he realized Steve stood gazing down into the burnt-out
fireplace, until another thought, swifter even than the impulse that
had lifted him across the threshold and thrust him into speech which,
already, he would have given much to recall, whirled him around again.
There was a light in the near end of the storehouse building just above
his own cabin, and as he hurried toward it he knew Fat Joe must have
fitted it up for the third man's quarters. He knocked at the door, and
when there came no response, unbidden he lifted the latch and entered.

Garry was sitting on the edge of his blanketed bunk--sitting with
shoulders slumped forward and head bowed low. He did not look up, for
he had not heard Steve's entrance. He was pondering over the cylinder
of a heavy, blued revolver, spinning beneath his transparent fingers.
But Steve's first inarticulate effort at speech brought his head
around. Garry smiled up at him--a smile reminiscent of his rare smile
of years before.

"I didn't mean anything, Steve," he said in a hushed voice. "I'm
damned sorry I spoke as I did. You see--you see, I just didn't know it
would hit you, that's all."

Again Steve swallowed. Dumbly he pointed at the gun.

"What are you doing with that?" he demanded hoarsely.

Garry's eyes dropped. He stared at the revolver in his hand in mild
perplexity, much as though he, too, were surprised to find it there.

"Why, nothing--nothing. I often take a notion to--to look at it like
this."

Then his face went crimson.

"You've heard the news, I see." He tried to hide the bitterness behind
the words, but one lip corner twitched and quivered. "They posted you
in advance, did they? But you did not believe I was as bad as that,
did you? You didn't think, did you, Steve, that I--I'd go out leaving
you to blame yourself even a little bit?"

His question was curiously wistful--wistful and as unsteady as the hand
which now proffered that blunt-barreled, huge-bore gun.

"Here, you take it, if--if you'll sleep the sounder. And don't you
worry over me. I'll see you in the morning, Steve."

CHAPTER XIV

A GIRL LIKE HER

Save for a short and casual "see you in the morning, Garry," Stephen
O'Mara turned without a word that night and left the improvised
sleeping-quarters in the storehous