nch
house closing the bargain now."

"Yes," repeated the voice, "I'm listening."

The speaker did not respond at once. With the trick of the very aged
when they relax, in the past minutes he seemed to have contracted
physically, to have shrunk, as it were, within himself. The nervousness
and uncertainty of a moment ago had passed now absolutely. The deep-set
eyes of him were of a sudden glowing ominously as they had done when
telling the same tale to Rancher Hawkins the night before; but that was
all. His voluntary offering was given; more than this must come by
request.

"I have nothing more to say--unless you wish," he repeated in the old
formula.

For a second time silence fell; to be broken again by the crackling of a
match in the white man's hand. Following, as though prompted by the
sound, came a question.

"Why,"--the Indian did not stir, but his eyes had shifted until they
looked immovably into those of his companion,--"why, please, was not the
mother of the child at least at the funeral?"

"Because she could not come," impassively. "The baby was less than two
days old."

"She had been back, though, back at the ranch, for some time?"

"Yes. Several weeks."

"She returned alone?"

"Yes."

"And to stay?"

Swifter and more swiftly came the questions. Even yet no muscle of the
inquisitor's body stirred; but in the black eyes a light new to the
other man, ominous in its belated appearance, was kindling.

"Yes," answered Manning.

"She, Bess, had left her husband?"

"No, Craig had left her."

Suddenly, instinctively, the impersonal had been dropped; but neither
man noticed the change.

"There was a reason?"

"Yes," baldly. "Another woman."

The locked fingers across the Indian's knee were growing white; white as
the sunlight without.

"And now he has returned, you say, to sell the ranch, her ranch?"

"It is her ranch no more. It is his."

"She, Bess, gave it to him after all that had happened, all that he had
done? You mean to tell me this?"

Abruptly, instinctively, for the end was very close at hand, the white
man got to his feet, stood so silent.

"Tell me." The Indian was likewise erect, his dark face standing clear
against the white background of the tent wall. "Did Bess do this thing?"

"No," said a voice. "It came to him in another way."

"Another way!" swiftly. "Another way!" repeated. "Another way!" for the
third time; and then a halt. For that moment realisation had come.