nly a few yards
away he kept his eye on the opening among the cottonwoods, behind which
the girl and the two horses moved from time to time, growing more and
more visible, as the moon climbed above the horizon mist.

He tightened his grip on the rifle and amused himself with drawing
beads on stumps and bright bits of foliage, from time to time. He must
be ready for any sort of action if the two should ever appear.

While he waited, sounds reached his ear from the town, sounds eloquent
of purpose. He listened to them as to beautiful music. It was a low,
distinct, and continuous humming sound. Voices of men went into it, low
as the growl of an angered dog, and there was a background of slamming
doors, and footsteps on verandas. Sour Creek was mustering for the
assault.

35

Now that sound had entered the jail, and it had a peculiar effect. It
was like that distant murmuring of the storm which walks over the
treetops far away. It made the sheriff and his two prisoners lift their
heads and look at one another in silence, for the sheriff was most
unprofessionally tilted back in a chair, with his feet braced against
the bars of the cell, while he chatted with his bad men about men,
women, and events. The sheriff had a distinct curiosity to learn how
Arizona had recovered so suddenly from his "blue funk."

Unquestionably the fat man had recovered. His voice was as steady now
as any man's, and the old, insolent glitter was in his eyes. He squared
his shoulders and blew his smoke straight at the face of the sheriff,
as he talked. What caused it, the sheriff could not tell, this
rehabilitation of a fighting man, but he connected the influence of
Sinclair with the change.

By this time Sinclair himself was the more restless of the two. While
Arizona sat at ease on the bunk, the tall man ranged up and down the
cell, with long, noiseless steps, turning quickly back and forth beside
the bars. He had spent his nervous energy cheering up Arizona, until
the latter was filled with a reckless, careless courage. What would
happen Arizona could not guess, but Sinclair had assured him that
something _would_ happen, and he trusted implicitly to the word of his
tall companion. Sooner or later he would learn that they were hopeless,
and Sinclair dreaded the breakdown which he knew would follow that
discovery.

In his heart Sinclair knew that there would be no hope, no chance. The
girl, he felt, had been swept off her feet with