egrading fear of
consequences--of punishment. With a most hearty loathing for the lower
depths of baseness uncovered by craven fear, one may be none the less a
helpless victim of a certain ruthless and malign ferocity to which it
is likely to give birth. Sitting with my back propped against the
windlass and the newly purchased rifle across my knees, I found that
cowardice, like other base passions, may suddenly develop an infection.
With nerves twittering and muscles tensely set, I was ready to become a
homicidal maniac at the snapping of a twig or the rolling of a pebble
down the hillside.

In such crises the twig is predestined to snap, or the pebble to roll.
Some slight movement on my part set a little cataract of broken stone
tumbling into the shaft. Before I could recover from the prickling
shock of alarm, I heard footsteps and a shadowy figure appeared in the
path leading over the spur from the Lawrenceburg. Automatically the
rifle flew to my shoulder, and a crooking forefinger was actually
pressing the trigger when reason returned and I saw that the
approaching intruder was a woman.

I was deeply grateful that it was too dark for Mary Everton to see with
what teeth-chatterings and reactionary tremblings I was letting down
the hammer of the rifle when she came up. For that matter, I think she
did not see me at all until I laid the gun aside and stood up to speak
to her. She had stopped as if irresolute; was evidently disconcerted
at finding the claim shack dark and apparently deserted.

"Oh!" she gasped, with a little backward start, as I rose from the
empty dynamite box upon which I had been sitting. Then she recognized
me and explained. "I--I thought you would be working--you have been
working nights, haven't you?--and I came over to--to speak to Mr.
Barrett."

Under other conditions I might have been conventionally critical. My
traditions were still somewhat hidebound. In Glendale a young woman
would scarcely go alone at night in search of a man, even though the
man might be her lover.

"Barrett has gone to bed: I'll call him," I said, limiting the
rejoinder to the bare necessities.

"No; please don't do that," she interposed. "I am sure he must be
needing his rest. I can come again--at some other time."

I was beginning to get a little better hold upon my nerves by this time
and I laughed.

"Bob is needing the rest, all right, but he will murder me when he
finds out that you've been here