The thrashers were singing to the moon. Out of the gaping coulÉe came their chorus, loud, rich, and artfully melodised. It mingled, as it were, with the scent that the wind fanned from the sumach blossoms, yellowish-green. Moon, music, perfume—and lovers were to meet.

The trysting-place lay in billows of frosty white, like the satin dress of a bride. Lounsbury measured it impatiently, with anxious eyes turned to the shack. At the last trumpet-strain from the fort, Dallas approached it on swift foot, her shadow flitting before.

When he saw her—a slender figure—he leaped forward, eager, grateful. She saw him, and halted, raising defensive hands.

"Dallas! Dallas!" He stretched out his arms to her.

"No, no—no, no."

As well try to stem the Missouri. He caught her close and held her. He pressed his cheek tenderly to hers. She yielded, murmuring to him. Thus—for a space that was matchlessly sweet. When, without releasing her, he lifted his head, and lifted hers by a smoothing caress of her hair. Then he searched her face long and hungrily.

"Oh, Dallas, you do care," he said finally, and his voice was deep with joy.She did not deny—only, "Just makes things worse," she whispered miserably.

Gently he let her go. "But I love you," he answered.

Her eyes were grave. They seemed to blame him.

"I love you," he repeated.

She was too just to forget her own lack of strength. Her eyes clouded with sadness, and brimmed. "I hate myself for coming," she said fiercely.

"We love each other. That isn't a crime," he declared.

"For you, it isn't. But it is for me. Because—it'll hurt Marylyn. Oh, you don't understand—I can't take her happiness. I can't! I can't!"

"It's not your fault that I love you, Dallas."

"What happens next is."

He shook his head—smiling.

She raised her chin, as if striving to master herself. "I knew all day that I'd come," she said steadily. "I'd 'a' come if I—died for it!"

"Ah, my dearest!" He put his hands upon her shoulders, drawing her near again.

She stepped back determinedly. "Let me tell you," she begged. "Please, I knew I'd come. So I made up my mind I'd do what was white—ask you to visit Marylyn, and talk to her. If you would, if you only would, why, at last, you couldn't help liking her!"

Again he smiled at her, shaking his head. "I love you, not Marylyn."

"You're a good man," she said. "You wouldn't like to see me do anything that wasn't right square. You wouldn't—think much of me if I did. I'll do wrong if—if I take you from her.""I wouldn't have you do anything wrong," he declared stoutly. "You never could. But, dear, Marylyn is a child yet. She's too young to know her own mind. And we're taking her more seriously than she takes herself."

"You don't know how sick and down in the mouth she's been. Just before father—went, she got a little better. After that, for a while, she was bad again. But I could see it wasn't all about father. There's something else. She's changed so—never talks much, just sits and looks and looks——" She turned away.

"I'm—I'm all she's got," she went on. "All her life I've tended her, just as if I was her mother. I fed her and dressed her. When she hurt herself, she came to me. Now, she's hurt worse than she's ever been, and she's come to me about it. I'm bound to help her."

"I happened to be the first man she got to know this side of Texas. She'd forget me in a week if she met someone else. If she don't meet someone else, I'm afraid she'll have to be hurt."

Dallas straightened proudly. "I'll never hurt her," she said.

"Nor I, if I can help it. She needn't know about us, just yet."

"I won't lie to her, either."

"Not lie, dear. But you won't refuse to come out here——"

"I do! I do! I'll never come again."

"Ah, Dallas, why should we deny ourselves that much? Why keep apart? I've lost the last dear one I had. You've lost your father, you're alone with your little sister. Come to me.""You'd take me away?" she asked. "You'd have me give up the claim? To forget what happened?"

"God help me—no! I ask you to share your life with me, your work, your revenge, everything."

"Not yet——"

"I can't bear to see you and Marylyn staying here alone. And I can't stay near enough to protect you as I ought. Matthews is sly. If I meet him, I'll kill him, as I would a wolf. Then, he'll be out of the way. But—suppose he gets ahead of me? does you harm? Your staying here seems all the more terrible to me since I've been East. The idea of your having just Charley to guard, of your plowing and planting and cutting hay——"

She laughed. "Outside work is fine," she said. "Better than cooking over a hot stove or breaking your back over a tub. Men have the best half of things—the air and the sky and the horses. I don't complain. I like my work. Let it make me like a man."

"It couldn't. I don't mean that. You're the womanliest woman I've ever known."

"I don't want you to ever think different."

"Never will. And I don't ask you to chain yourself up in a house. There's a big future in the cow business. We'd take my share of the Clark herd—you'd ride with me—we'd be partners."

"Wait—wait." Temptation was dragging sorely at her heart. She glanced homeward. Behind her, the tall grass was running with the wind. She longed to run with it. Yet——

"I'll wait and wait," he said; "long as you ask, if it's years."She retreated a few steps. "I must go now. Don't think I don't know what you've done for us—the sutler, and all that. I'll remember it. But I got to go—good-by."

"Good-night, not good-by," he answered. "Can't I come this far and help you to-morrow with the hay?"

"No, no."

"Let me send a couple of men, then."

"I'll do it alone. I'd rather. It's all in but this little bit."

"But please go slow. Don't wear yourself out, Dallas."

"If my work was all!" she said sorrowfully.

"If you would come here, now and then, to me, dear——"

"I'll never come again. This once, I couldn't help it. Oh, I tried and tried! But next time I can. I'll think of Marylyn. Why, I'd give my life to make her happy!"

"But your love—that goes where it pleases."

"You won't come to see her?"

"It wouldn't help. But I'll be here every night."

She retreated again. He did not attempt to follow.

"Good-night," she said.

"Good-night, good-night."

The moon was drifting up the eastern sky, and, as she went, her shadow pursued her. He watched until it blended with the shadow of the shack. Then, walked far to the left, and laid out a beat that half circled the squat building.

"There's just one man I got to look out for," he said aloud. "It'd be different if I had to worry about Indians."

That moment, across the river, in the lodge of Standing Buffalo, the young chieftain was bending over an uncovered box, holding in one hand the shaft of an arrow, on the end of which was a piece of freshly killed dog; in the other hand he held a willow wand, sharpened. Beneath him, crawling and coiling and singing, were Lieutenant Fraser's rattlers.

The Indian kept the shaft to one side while he diligently prodded the reptiles with the willow. When he had enraged them so that they began to strike blindly at each other and at themselves, he lowered the shaft and let them drive their fangs into the meat. And when they were spent with their anger and springing, he covered the box and held up the flesh, which had turned from red to green, and was dripping dark with venom. Then, into it, he began thrusting the points of a quiver of arrows.