digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a
refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but
well made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden by
his rough clothes.

"Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?" he said, blinking at the two
beside the fire. "How long?" he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his
tone.

"I said I'd wake you," said the girl, coming forwards. "You needn't have
worried."

"I don't worry," answered the young man. "I dreamed myself awake, I
suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush in
the Barfleur Coulee, and--" He saw a secret, warning gesture from the
girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. "Oh, I
know him! Abe Hawley's all O. K.--I've seen him over at Dingan's Drive.
Honour among rogues. We're all in it. How goes it--all right?" he added
carelessly to Hawley, and took a step forwards, as though to shake hands.
Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he turned to the
girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not hear.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"It's nine o'clock," answered the girl, her eyes watching his every
movement, her face alive.

"Then the moon's up almost?"

"It'll be up in an hour."