nd rushed around the table to Buck.

"Silent has dared Dan to meet him at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon
in Tully's saloon in Elkhead! He's held up four men in the last
twenty-four hours and told them that he'll be at Tully's tomorrow and
will expect Dan there!"

"It isn't possible!" cried Kate. "That means that Silent is giving
himself up to the law!"

Buck laughed bitterly.

"The law will not put a hand on them if it thinks that they'll fight
it out together," he said.

"There'll be a crowd in the saloon, but not a hand will stir to arrest
Silent till after the fight."

"But Dan won't go to Tully's," broke in old Joe. "If Silent is crazy
enough to do such a thing, Dan won't be."

"He will," said Kate. "I know!"

"You've got to stop him," urged Buck. "You've got to get to Elkhead
and turn Dan back."

"Ay," said Joe, "for even if he kills Silent, the crowd will tackle
him after the fight--a hundred against one."

She shook her head.

"You won't go?"

"Not a step."

"But Kate, don't you understand--?"

"I couldn't turn Dan back. There is his chance to meet Silent. Do you
dream any one could turn him back?"

The two men were mute.

"You're right," said Buck at last. "I hoped for a minute that you
could do it, but now I remember the way he was in that dark shanty up
the Bald-eagle Creek. You can't turn a wolf from a trail, and Whistling
Dan has never forgotten the taste of his own blood."

"Kate!" called her father suddenly. "What's the matter, honey?"

With bowed head and a faltering step she was leaving the room. Buck
caught old Joe by the arm and held him back as he would have followed.

"Let her be!" said Buck sharply. "Maybe she'll want to see you at
three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, but until then she'll want to be
alone. There'll be ghosts enough with her all the time. You c'n lay to
that."

Joe Cumberland wiped his glistening forehead.

"There ain't nothin' we c'n do, Buck, but sit an' wait."

Buck drew a long breath.

"What devil gave Silent that idea?"

"_Fear_!"

"Jim Silent don't know what fear is!"

"Any one who's seen the yaller burn in Dan's eyes knows what fear is."

Buck winced.

Cumberland went on: "Every night Silent has been seein' them eyes that
glow yaller in the dark. They lie in wait for him in every shadow.
Between dark and dawn he dies a hundred deaths. He can't stand it no
more. He's goin' to die. Somethin' tells him that. But he wants to die
where they's