eached out, and his powerful hand closed about the other's
upper arm.

"What I've got to tell you can be told in my shack. You best come
right on."

"Take your darned hand off me!" cried Will, angrily. "You'll tell me
here, or I get back to my game." He tried to twist himself free. But
Peter's hand tightened its hold.

"You're quitting that saloon for to-night, Will," he said quietly.

The other laughed, but he had a curiously uncomfortable feeling under
his anger. Suddenly he put more exertion into his efforts to release
himself, and his fury rose in proportion.

"Darn your soul, let me go!" he cried.

But Peter suddenly seized his wrist with his other hand, and it closed
on it like a vice.

"Don't drive me to force," he warned. "That saloon is closed to you
to-night. Do you understand? I've got to say things that'll likely
change your way of thinking. Don't be a fool; come on up to my
shack."

There was something so full of calm strength, so full of conviction in
Peter's tone that it was not without its effect. That guilty thought
rose again in Will's mind, and it weakened his power of resistance.
His rage was no less, but now there was something else with it, an
undermining fear, and in a moment he ceased to struggle.

"All right," he said, and moved forward at the other's side.

Peter released his wrist, but kept his hold on his arm.

And they walked in silence to the "shack." Will had long known the
gold prospector, and had become so accustomed to the mildness of his
manner, as had all the village, that this sudden display of physical
and moral force brought with it an awakening that had an unpleasant
flavor. Then, too, his own thoughts were none too easy, and the
picture of Eve as he had last seen her would obtrude itself, and
created, if no gentler feeling, at least a guilty nervousness that
sickened his stomach.

Peter said that Doc Crombie had only just left her. What did that
mean? Only just left her, and--it had occurred nearly two hours ago.
He was troubled. But his trouble was in no way touched with either
remorse or pity. He was thinking purely of himself.

Of course she had recovered, he told himself. He had watched her
breathing before he left her. Yes, he had ascertained that. She had
been merely stunned. Ah, a sudden thought! Perhaps she had told them
what had happened. A black rage against her suddenly took hold of him.
If she had--but no. Even though he was--as he was, he realized, a