is impinged upon one without loss of time in reason and surmise--
and this was one of those moments for Philip. His first thought as
he saw the great wild face in the door of his tunnel was that Bram
had been looking at him for some time--while he was asleep; and
that if the desire to kill had been in the outlaw's breast he
might have achieved his purpose with very little trouble. Equally
swift was his observance of the fact that the tent with which he
had covered the aperture was gone, and that his rifle, with the
weight of which he had held the tent in place, had disappeared.
Bram had secured possession of them before he had roused himself.

It was not the loss of these things, or entirely Bram's sudden and
unexpected appearance, that sent through him the odd thrill, which
he experienced. It was Bram's face, his eyes, the tense and
mysterious earnestness that was in his gaze. It was not the
watchfulness of a victor looking at his victim. In it there was no
sign of hatred or of exultation. There was not even unfriendliness
there. Rather it was the study of one filled with doubt and
uneasiness, and confronted by a question which he could not
answer. There was not a line of the face which Philip could not
see now--its high cheek-bones, its wide cheeks, the low forehead,
the flat nose, the thick lips. Only the eyes kept it from being a
terrible face. Straight down through the generations Bram must
have inherited those eyes from some woman of the past. They were
strange things in that wild and hunted creature's face--gray eyes,
large, beautiful. With the face taken away they would have been
wonderful.

For a full minute not a sound passed between the two men. Philip's
hand had slipped to the butt of his revolver, but he had no