CHAPTER VII


It was in the blood of John Aldous to kill Quade. He ran with the quickness
of a hare around the end of the cabin, past the window, and then stopped to
listen, his automatic in his hand, his eye piercing the gloom for some
moving shadow. He had not counted on an instant's hesitation. He would
shoot Quade, for he knew why the mottled beast had been at the window.
Stevens' boy had been right. Quade was after Joanne. His ugly soul was
disrupted with a desire to possess her, and Aldous knew that when roused by
passion he was more like a devil-fish than a man--a creeping, slimy,
night-seeking creature who had not only the power of the underworld back of
him, but wealth as well. He did not think of him as a man as he stood
listening, but as a beast. He was ready to shoot. But he saw nothing. He
heard no sound that could have been made by a stumbling foot or a moving
body. An hour later, the moon would have been up, but it was dark now
except for the stars. He heard the hoot of an owl a hundred yards away. Out
in the river something splashed. From the timber beyond Buffalo Prairie
came the yapping bark of a coyote. For five minutes he stood as silent as
one of the rocks behind him. He realized that to go on--to seek blindly for
Quade in the darkness, would be folly. He went back, tapped at the door,
and reëntered the cabin when Joanne threw back the lock.

She was still pale. Her eyes were bright.

"I was coming--in a moment," she said, "I was beginning to fear that----"