rley Clancy for a target."

"You think she _saw_ me?" asks the assassin, with increasing uneasiness.

"Think! I'm sure of it. More than saw--she recognised ye. I could
tell that from the way she shot back into the shadow. Did ye not notice
it yourself?"

"No," rejoins Darke, the monosyllable issuing mechanically from his
lips, while a shiver runs through his frame.

His questioner, observing these signs, continues,--

"T'ike my advice, and come with us fellows to Texas. Before you're long
there, the Mexikin girls will make you stop moping about Miss Armstrong.
After the first _fandango_ you've been at, you won't care a straw for
her. Believe me, you'll soon forget her."

"Never!" exclaims Darke, in the fervour of his passion--thwarted though
it has been--forgetting the danger he is in.

"If that's your detarmination," returns Borlasse, "an' you've made up
your mind to keep that sweetheart in sight, you won't be likely to live
long. As sure as you're sittin' thar, afore breakfast time to-morrow
mornin' the town of Naketosh 'll be too hot to hold ye."

Darke starts from his chair, as if _it_ had become too hot.

"Keep cool, Quantrell!" counsels the Texan. "No need for ye to be
scared at what I'm sayin'. Thar's no great danger jest yet. There
might be, if you were in that chair, or this room, eight hours later. I
won't be myself, not one. For I may as well tell ye, that Jim Borlasse,
same's yourself, has reasons for shiftin' quarters from the Choctaw
Chief. And so, too, some o' the fellows we've been drinkin' with.
We'll all be out o' this a good hour afore sun-up. Take a friend's
advice, and make tracks along wi' us. Will you?"

Darke still hesitates to give an affirmative answer. His love for Helen
Armstrong--wild, wanton passion though it be--is the controlling
influence of his life. It has influenced him to follow her thus far,
almost as much as the hope of escaping punishment for his crime. And
though knowing, that the officers of justice are after him, he clings to
the spot where she is staying, with that fascination which keeps the fox
by the kennel holding the hounds. The thought of leaving her behind--
perhaps never to see her again--is more repugnant than the spectre of a
scaffold!

The Texan guesses the reason of his irresolution. More than this, he
knows he has the means to put an end to it. A word will be sufficient;
or, at most, a single speech. He puts it thus--

"If you'r