say no," answered Zook, with
dancing eyes. Pay-day was some weeks off after all, and he knew how
"the fellers" would relish the trader's beer. "Now, if you would like
to sit down, why not go around to the other side and away from this
crowd? There are empty benches at the stage-office. I must run, sir; so
good-night, and many thanks."

The office-window had just been thrown open and the distribution was
just begun. It would be some time before his turn would come. Holmes
knew perfectly well that, only for the fun of the thing, some of those
teamsters and scouts would form a "queue," and, with unimpeachable
gravity, march up to the window and inquire if there was anything for
Red-Handed Bill, or Rip-Roaring Mike, or the Hon. G. Bullwhacker, of
Laramie Plains. He wanted time to think a bit before he returned to the
doctor's house, anyhow. He had drawn from Corporal Zook a detailed
account of McLean's spirited and soldierly conduct in the fight;
learned that it was he who killed the second warrior in what was
practically a hand-to-hand struggle, and that his wounds were painful
and severe, despite his effort to overcome and hide them when the
pursuit began. Hatton's remarks had been echoing time and again through
his memory. It would indeed be comfort to McLean to hear how shocked
and painfully stricken was Nellie Bayard at the news of the fight and
his probable death. If it proved half the comfort to McLean that it was
sorrow to his elderly rival, thought Holmes with a deep sigh, "he'll
soon be well, and 'twill be high time for me to vanish."

Pacing slowly up the road, he turned an angle of the old wooden
building, and found himself alone in a broad, square enclosure. The
stars were shining brightly overhead, but there was no moon and the
darkness in this nook among the storehouses and offices was simply
intense. The only light came through the slats of the shutter at a
side-window back of the post-office. Merely glancing at it as he
passed, Holmes walked on with bowed head and hands clasped behind him,
thinking deeply over the situation. Had he come too late to win that
sweet, youthful, guileless heart, or had he come only just in time to
see it given to another? Had he, in the light of what he had seen and
heard, any right to speak of matters that had gravely distressed him?
Was it his bounden duty to disclose certain suspicions, display certain
proofs? Or was it more than all his, the man's, part to stay and help
to