I have to be fed."

"No. You'd never guess. Come in," she said, and the rare smile on her
face was something Shefford would have gone far to see.

"Well, then, for a minute."

He crossed the porch, the threshold, and entered her home. Her dim,
white shape moved in the darkness. And he followed into a room where the
moon shone through the open window, giving soft, mellow, shadowy light.
He discerned objects, but not clearly, for his senses seemed absorbed in
the strange warmth and intimacy of being for the first time with her in
her home.

"No, it's not good to eat," she said, and her laugh was happy. "Here--"

Suddenly she abruptly ceased speaking. Shefford saw her plainly, and the
slender form had stiffened, alert and strained. She was listening.

"What was that?" she whispered.

"I didn't hear anything," he whispered back.

He stepped softly nearer the open window and listened.

Clip-clop! clip-clop! clip-clop! Hard hoofs on the hard path outside!

A strong and rippling thrill went over Shefford. In the soft light her
eyes seemed unnaturally large and black and fearful.

Clip-clop! clip-clop!

The horse stopped outside. Then followed a metallic clink of spur
against stirrup--thud of boots on hard ground--heavy footsteps upon the
porch.

A swift, cold contraction of throat, of breast, convulsed Shefford. His
only thought was that he could not think.

"Ho--Mary!"

A voice liberated both Shefford's muscle and mind--a voice of strange,
vibrant power. Authority of religion and cruelty of will--these
Mormon attributes constituted that power. And Shefford suffered a
transformation which must have been ordered by demons. That sudden flame
seemed to curl and twine and shoot along his veins with blasting force.
A rancorous and terrible cry leaped to his lips.

"Ho--Mary!" Then came a heavy tread across the threshold of the outer
room.

Shefford dared not look at Fay. Yet, dimly, from the corner of his eye,
he saw her, a pale shadow, turned to stone, with her arms out. If he
looked, if he made sure of that, he was lost. When had he drawn his gun?
It was there, a dark and glinting thing in his hand. He must fly--not
through cowardice and fear, but because in one more moment he would
kill a man. Swift as the thought he dove through the open window. And,
leaping up, he ran under the dark pinyons toward camp.

Joe Lake had been out late himself. He sat by the fire, smoking his
pipe. He must have seen or heard