As he stepped toward her, he cried:
"Same to you. Good-by." Grasping her by the hand, he added warmly:
"An'--happiness."

"I'll tell Bud you're here," cried Polly over her shoulder.

Buck looked after the girl as she swung across the prairie to find Bud.

"She's a darned fine leetle gal, she is," mused Buck. "Seein' Bud so
happy, kinder makes me homesick. Things is gettin' too warm for me
here, anyway. If Payson gets back, he'll be able to clear himself
about that Terrill business, an' things is likely to p'int pretty
straight at me an' Bud. I'm sorry I dragged Bud into that. I could
have done it alone just as well--an' kep' all the money."

McKee sat down to wait for Bud. His mind was filled with pleasant
thoughts. Having assumed a chivalrous role in the Peruna incident, he
was tasting something of the sweet sensations and experiences that
follow a sincerely generous action. Smiles and pleasant greetings from
Polly, who had heretofore met him with venomous looks and stinging
words, were balm to his soul. He felt well-satisfied with himself and
kindly toward the whole world. The fiendish torturer of helpless men
and harmless beasts, the cold-blooded murderer, the devilish intriguer
to incriminate an innocent man, thought that he was a very good fellow,
after all; much better than, say, such a man as Jack Payson. He had at
least always treated women white, and had never gone back on a friend.
When he thought how Payson had drawn his pistol on trusting,
unsuspecting Dick Lane in the garden, he was filled with the same
pharisaic self-righteousness that inflated Bud when comparing himself
with McKee.

His enjoyment in contemplating his own virtues was overclouded,
however, by a vague presentiment of impending danger, the "premonition"
he had of to Polly--a word he had picked up from fortune-tellers, whom
he often consulted, being very superstitious, as are most gamblers.

And Nemesis in the person of Peruna was indeed approaching. The outlaw
crept up out of the draw behind the contemplative half-breed, and,
leaping upon his back, plunged his knife in McKee's neck, with a fierce
thrust, into which he concentrated all his hatred for the humiliation
he had endured.

With a stifled cry Buck struggled to his feet to face his assailant,
drawing his gun instinctively. The knife had bitten too deeply,
however. With a groan he fell; weakly he tried to level his gun, his
finger twitching convulsively at the tri