ime on the threshold of the bunkhouse door, and
after a time he noted that the moon was swimming high, almost overhead.
He got up, unhurriedly, and again walked to the stable door, looking in
at Purgatory. For Harlan did not intend to sleep tonight; he had
resolved, since the Rancho Seco seemed to be deserted except for his and
Barbara's presence, to guard the ranchhouse.

For he knew that the passions of Deveny for the girl were thoroughly
aroused. He had seen in Deveny's eyes there in Lamo a flame--when Deveny
looked at Barbara--that told him more about the man's passions than
Deveny himself suspected. He grinned coldly as he leaned easily against
the stable door; for men of the Deveny type always aroused him--their
personality had always seemed to strike discord into his soul; had always
fanned into flame the smoldering hatred he had of such men; had always
brought into his heart those savage impulses which he had sometimes felt
when he was on the verge of yielding to the urge to become what men had
thought him--and what they still thought him--a conscienceless killer.

His smile now was bitter with the hatred that was in his heart for
Deveny--for Deveny had cast longing, lustful eyes upon Barbara
Morgan--and the smile grew into a sneer as he drew out paper and tobacco
and began to roll a cigarette.

But as he rolled the cigarette his fingers stiffened; the paper and the
tobacco in it dropped into the dust at his feet; and he stiffened, his
lips straightening, his eyes flaming with rage, his muscles tensing.

For a horseman had appeared from out of the moonlit haze beyond the
river. Rigid in the doorway--standing back a little so that he might not
be seen--Harlan watched the man.

The latter brought his horse to a halt when he reached the far corner of
the ranchhouse, dismounted, and stole stealthily along the wall of the
building.

Harlan was not more than a hundred feet distant, and the glare of the
moonlight shining full on the man as he paused before the door into which
Barbara Morgan had gone, revealed him plainly to Harlan.

The man was Meeder Lawson. Harlan's lips wreathed into a grin of cold
contempt. He stepped quickly to Purgatory, drew his rifle from its saddle
sheath and returned to the doorway. And there, standing in the shadows,
he watched Lawson as the latter tried the door and, failing to open it,
left it and crept along the wall of the building, going toward a window.

The window also was fas