e money. To do so never occurred to her. It was the moment for
parting, but she did not throw her arms about his neck in abandon, as
she would have done a week before. Something, she knew not what,
prevented. She merely sat there, repressed, passive, waiting. A moment,
by her side, the Indian paused. He did not speak, he did not move. He
merely looked at her; and in his dark eyes there was mirrored a
reflection of the look there had been in the eyes of the wild thing he
had stalked and captured that day alone on the prairie. But the girl was
not looking at him, did not see. A moment he stood so, unconsciously as
so many, many times before, in pose; then deliberately, gently, ignoring
the row of curious observant eyes, he took her hand and raised it to his
lips.

"Good-bye, Bess," he said low. "Come back as soon as you can; and don't
worry. Everything will come right." Gently as he had lifted the hand, he
released it. A smile--who but he could have smiled at that
moment?--played for an instant over his face. Then, almost before the
girl realised the fact, before the repressive something that held her in
its grip gave release, he was gone.

As he left the coach, Craig, who was waiting, started without a word or
a hint of recognition to enter. His foot was already on the step, when
he felt a hand upon his arm; a hand with a grip whose meaning there was
no misinterpreting. Against his will he drew back. Against his will he
met the other, face to face, eye to eye. For what seemed to him minutes,
but which in reality was only a second, they stood so. Not a word was
spoken, of warning or of commonplace. There was no polite farce for the
benefit of the spectators. The Indian merely looked at him; but as once
before, alone under the stars, that look was to remain burned on the
white man's memory until he went to his grave.

"A'board," bawled the conductor, and as though worked by the same wire,
the engineer's waiting head disappeared within the cab window.

Side by side, Clayton Craig and Elizabeth Landor sat watching the
weather-stained station and the curious assembled group, as apparently
they slowly receded. The last thing they saw was the alien figure of an
Indian in rancher's garb, gazing motionless after them; and by his side,
in baiting pantomime, one gawky urchin engaged in the labour of scalping
a mate. The last sound that reached their ears was the ironic note of a
war whoop repeated again and again.

CHAPT