d all
his views were inward. He still did not know what he would do, but there
was much of a moving nature to him in the scene that he left. He had
never before seen such a look on a woman's face as that on Sylvia's when
she threw herself upon Harley's breast and defied his bullet; it was
beautiful and wonderfully pathetic, and something like a sob came from
the burly "King." Harley, too, had borne himself like a man; there was
no fear in the face of the Eastern youth when he looked into the muzzle
of the pistol that threatened instant death; "King" Plummer remembered
more than once in the early days when he had been covered by the
levelled weapon of an enemy, and he knew how hard it was in such a case
to control one's nerves and keep steady. He could not help respecting a
courage fully the equal of his own.

He wandered on in a series of circles that did not take him far, and in
a half-hour he stopped at the crest of a swell higher than the rest. He
saw Sylvia and Harley far away--but he knew them well--walking side by
side. "Well, I suppose they have the right!" he said, moodily. The fire
within him was dying down, but he added; "I'll be damned if I look at
them making love."

The "King" had the habits bred by long years of necessity and
precaution, and unless the distracting circumstances were very powerful
he was always a keen observer of weather and locality. Now the fire was
low, but he was almost at the edge of the town before his blood became
normal and cool. Then he looked about. A half-mile away he saw a mass of
heads, sometimes rising and falling, and a faint echo of cheers came to
him. He knew that the candidate was still speaking, and he smiled rather
sourly. Then he was conscious that the sunshine was not so brilliant,
and there was a feeling of chill damp in the wind that came up from the
southwest.

The "King" glanced up at the sky; it had turned a steely gray, and ugly
brown clouds were coming up over the rim of the southwestern horizon.
"There's going to be an early snow," he said, and for the moment the
matter gave him no further concern. Then Sylvia and Harley suddenly shot
up and filled his whole horizon. He had seen them far from where he
stood, and they were going directly away from the town, not towards it!
And one was a girl and the other a tenderfoot!

Now Harley disappeared from the "King's" horizon as suddenly as he had
come into it, and the solitary figure of Sylvia filled all its space.