He looked tired; he had evidently ridden hard, for the alkali dust was thick on his clothing; he was breathing fast, his eyes were burning with some deep emotion, his lips were grim and hard.
He closed the door and stood with his back against it, looking at her. Something had wrought a wonderful change in him. He was not the Calumet she had known—brutal, vicious, domineering, sneering; though he was laboring under some great excitement, suppressing it, so that to an eye less keen than hers it might have seemed that he had been undergoing some great physical exertion and was just recovering from it. It seemed to her that he had found himself; that that regeneration for which she had hoped had come—had taken place between the time he had left that morning and now.
She did not know that it had been a mighty struggle of three days' duration; that the transformation had been a slow, tortuous thing to him. She only knew that a great change had come over him; that, in spite of the evident strain which was upon him, there was something gentle, respectful, considerate, in his face, back of Its exterior hardness—a slumbering, triumphant something that made an instant appeal to her, lighting her eyes, coloring her face, making her heart beat with an unaccountable gladness.
"Oh," she said; "what has happened to you?"
"Nothin'," he answered, with a grave smile. "That is, nothin'—yet. Except that I've found out what a fool I've been. But I've found it out too late."
"No," she said, reaching the quick conclusion that he meant it was too late for him to complete his reformation; "it is never too late."
"I think I know what you mean," he answered. "But you've got it wrong. It's somethin' else. I've got to get out of here—got to hit the breeze out of the country. The sheriff is after me."
She took a step backward. "What for?" she asked breathlessly.
"For killin' Al Sharp."
"Al Sharp!" she exclaimed, staring at him in amazement. "Why, you told me that an Indian named Telza killed him!"