spurt of blood came to her lips and trickled down
her face.

Simultaneously the crowd went silent; silent as the still prairie about
them, awed irresistibly by the thing they had themselves wittingly or
unwittingly done. Save one, not a human being stirred. That one, no need
to tell whom, transformed visibly; transformed as they had never seen a
human being alter before. With not a step, but a bound, he was himself
on the platform of the coach; the girl, protected behind him, hid from
sight. She was sobbing now; sobbing tumultuously, hysterically. In the
stillness every listening ear on the platform could hear distinctly. For
an instant after he had reached her the Indian stood so, his left arm
about her, his back toward them. He did not say a word, he did not move.
For the first time in his life he dared not. He did not see red that
moment, this man; he saw black--black as prairie loam. Every savage
instinct in his brain was clamouring for freedom, clamouring until his
free hand was clenched tight to keep it from the bulging holster behind
his right hip. Before this instant, when they were baiting him alone, it
was nothing, he could forgive; but now--now--He stared away from them,
stared up into the smiling, sarcastic prairie sky; but, listening, they,
who almost with fascination watched, could hear beneath the catch of the
girl's sobs the sound of his breathing.

Ever at climaxes time seems suspended. Whether it was a second or a
minute he stood there so, they who watched could never tell. What they
did know was that at last he turned, stood facing them. All their lives
they had seen passion, seen it in every phase, seen it until it was
commonplace. It was in the very air of the frontier, to be expected,
life of the life; but as this man shifted they saw a kind of which they
had never dreamed. For How Landor was master of himself again, master,
as well--they knew it, every man and youth who saw,--of them. For
another indefinitely long deathly silent space he merely looked at them;
looked eye to eye, individual by individual, into every face within the
surrounding semi-circle. Once before another man, a drunken cowman, had
seen that identical look. Now not one but a score saw it, felt a
terrible ice-cold menace creep from his brain into their brains. Even
yet he did not speak, did not make a sound; nor did they. Explain it as
you will, he did this thing. Another thing he did as well; and that was
the end. Slowly, deli