alous, eh?" he said. "Well, she _is_ a mighty good-looking girl, for a
fact!"

That was all. The girl heard Deveny step into a room--the room adjoining
hers; she could hear his heavy boots striking the floor as he removed
them.

For a long time the girl rested on her elbow, listening; but no further
sounds came from the room into which Deveny had gone. At last, trembling,
her face white with fear, the girl got up and stole noiselessly to the
door.

A light bolt was the door's only fastening; and the girl stood long, with
a hand upon it, considering its frailty. How easy it would be for a big
man like Deveny to force the door. One shove of his giant shoulder and
the bolt would give.

Stealthily, noiselessly, straining with every ounce of her strength, she
managed to lift the cheap bureau and carry it to the door, placing it
against the latter, barricading it. Not satisfied, she dragged the bed
over against the bureau.

Even when that had been accomplished, she was not satisfied and during
the greater part of the night she sat on the edge of the bed, listening
and watching the door. For in the days that had fled Deveny had said
certain things to her that she had not repeated to her father; he had
looked at her with a significance that no man could have understood; and
there had been a gleam in his eyes at these times which had convinced her
that behind the bland smoothness of him--back of the suave politeness of
his manner--was a primitive animalism. His suave politeness was a velvet
veil of character behind which he masked the slavering fangs of the beast
he really was.

CHAPTER IV

HIS SHADOW BEFORE

At ten o'clock the following morning, in a rear room of "Balleau's First
Chance" saloon--which was directly across the street from the Lamo
Eating-House--Luke Deveny and two other men were sitting at a card-table
with bottle and glasses between them. A window in the eastern side of the
room gave the men an unobstructed view of the desert, and for half an
hour, as they talked and drank, they looked out through the window.

A tall, muscular man with a slightly hooked nose, keen blue eyes with a
cold glint in them, black hair, and an equally black mustache which
revealed a firm-lipped mouth with curves at the corners that hinted of
cynicism, and, perhaps cruelty, was sitting at the table so that he faced
the window. His smile, as he again glanced out of the window, roved to
Deveny--who sat at his right.