logs and a brighter blaze lightened the scene. Then he saw this
stranger a little more clearly, and made out an unusually large head,
broad dark face, a sinister tight-shut mouth, and gleaming black eyes.

Those eyes were unmistakably hostile. They roved searchingly over
Shefford's pack and then over his person. Shefford felt for the gun
that Presbrey had given him. But it was gone. He had left it back
where he had lost his horse, and had not thought of it since. Then a
strange, slow-coming cold agitation possessed Shefford. Something
gripped his throat.

Suddenly Shefford was stricken at a menacing movement on the part of
the horseman. He had drawn a gun. Shefford saw it shine darkly in
the firelight. The Indian meant to murder him. Shefford saw the grim,
dark face in a kind of horrible amaze. He felt the meaning of that
drawn weapon as he had never felt anything before in his life. And
he collapsed back into his seat with an icy, sickening terror. In a
second he was dripping wet with cold sweat. Lightning-swift thoughts
flashed through his mind. It had been one of his platitudes that he
was not afraid of death. Yet here he was a shaking, helpless coward.
What had he learned about either life or death? Would this dark savage
plunge him into the unknown? It was then that Shefford realized his
hollow philosophy and the bitter-sweetness of life. He had a brain
and a soul, and between them he might have worked out his salvation.
But what were they to this ruthless night-wanderer, this raw and
horrible wildness of the desert?

Incapable of voluntary movement, with tongue cleaving to the roof of
his mouth, Shefford watched the horseman and the half-poised gun. It
was not yet leveled. Then it dawned upon Shefford that the stranger's