Part 19 (2/2)
The glancing, glinting light flashi+ng fro see while silently Then he spoke
”For fifteen years I've been a haunted arret peopled with bats and varer that if I killed this , noiseless things would leaveit ood--you can't outfoot a memory--and I knew all the while that we'd meet sooner or later Now that the day is here at last, I'ain if there was any place to run to, but I've followed frontiers till I've seen theainst the Circle, and there isn't any further land to go to All the ti, and yet--I'm undecided”
”Kill him!” said Alluna
”God knows I've always hated trouble, whereas it's what he lives on
I've alanted to die in bed, while he's been a killer all his life and the sht have lived here all our days and never had a 'run-in,' which o on as they are”
”Kill him! It is the law,” repeated Alluna, stubbornly, but he put her aside with a slow shake of the head and arose as if very tired
”No! I don't think I can do it--not in cold blood, anyhow Good-night!
I' to sleep on it” He crossed to the door of his room, but as he went she noted that he slipped the knife and scabbard inside the bosom of his shi+rt
CHAPTER IX
THE AWAKENING
Early the nextCorporal Tho it while Gale was out Ever since the day she had questioned him about Burrell, this old irl, and when he asked her thisLee's strike, she told him of her trip, and all that had occurred
”You see, I'm a mine-owner now,” she concluded ”If it hadn't been a secret I would have told you before I went so you could have been one of the first”
”I'oin', anyhow,” he said, ”if the Lieutenant will let me and if it's not too late”
Then she told him of the trail by Black Bear Creek which would save him several hours
”So that's how you and heat her shrewdly ”I supposed you ith your father?”
”Oh, no! We beat hi at the memory of those hours passed alone with Meade, while her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed The Corporal saw the look, and it bore out a theory he had forered, he set about a task that had lain in his mind for some time As a rule he was not a careful man in his speech, and the delicacy of this enuity to the utirl and feared to say too an; ”and it was slick work juirl like you--I've seen him do it before--”
”What!” exclais just like it He's always doing favors that get him into trouble”
”This couldn't cause hie?”
”No, I reckon not,” assented the Corporal, groping blindly for so what he wished to say ”Except, of course, it ht cause a lot of talk at headquarters when it's knohat he's done for you and how he done it I heard so, so I'et to St Michael's, and then to his folks” He realized that he was not getting on well, for the task was harder than he had iined
”I don't understand,” said Necia ”He hasn't done anything that any man wouldn't do under the saht to irl,” said the Corporal; ”and the feller that told me about it said he reckoned you tas in love” He hurried along noithout offering her a chance to speak ”Of course, that had to be caught up quick; you're too fine a girl for that”
”Too fine?” Necia laughed
”I , just as he's too fine a fellow and got too much ahead of him to make what his people would call a messy alliance”