e detarmined to stick by the apron-strings o' Miss Armstrong,
you'll not do that by staying here in Naketosh. Your best place, to be
_near her_, will be along _with me_."

"How so, Mr Borlasse?" questions Darke, his eyes opening to a new
light. "Why do you say that?"

"You ought to know, without my tellin' you--a man of your 'cuteness,
Quantrell! You say you can never forget the older of that pair o'
girls. I believe you; and will be candid, too, in sayin', no more is
Jim Borlasse like to forget the younger. I thought nothin' could 'a
fetched that soft feelin' over me. 'Twant likely, after what I've gone
through in my time. But she's done it--them blue eyes of hers; hanged
if they hain't! Then, do you suppose that I'm going to run away from,
and lose sight o' her and them? _No_; not till I've had her within
these arms, and tears out o' them same peepers droppin' on my cheeks.
That is, if she take it in the weepin' way."

"I don't understand," stammers Darke.

"You will in time," rejoins the ruffian; "that is, if you become one o'
us, and go where we're a-goin'. Enough now for you to be told that,
_there you will find your sweetheart_!"

Without waiting to watch the effect of his last words, the tempter
continues--

"Now, Phil Quantrell, or Dick Darke, as in confidence I may call ye, are
you willin' to be one o' us?"

"I am."

"Good! That's settled. An' your comrade, Harkness; I take it, he'll
go, too, when told o' the danger of staying behind; not that he appears
o' much account, anyway. Still, among us _mustangers_, the more the
merrier; and, sometimes we need numbers to help in the surroundin' o'
the horses. He'll go along, won't he?"

"Anywhere, with me."

"Well, then, you'd better step into his bedroom, and roust him up. Both
of ye must be ready at once. Slip out to the stable, an' see to the
saddles of your horses. You needn't trouble about settlin' the tavern
bill. That's all scored to me; we kin fix the proportions of it
afterward. Now, Quantrell, look sharp; in twenty minutes, time, I
expect to find you an' Harkness in the saddle, where you'll see ten o'
us others the same."

Saying this, the Texan strides out into the corridor, Darke preceding
him. In the dimly-lighted passage they part company, Borlasse opening
door after door of several bedrooms, ranged on both sides of it; into
each, speaking a word, which, though only in whisper, seems to awake a
sleeper as if a cannon wer