The crystal into which he gazed cleared and clouded; clouded and cleared. He could not yet be sure of himself. While he stood with that stress upon him still in molten indecision, he was not quite sure whether he heard the girl's voice, or whether it came to him from memory of other days, as it had sounded under dogwood blossoming on the crest of Slag-face:
"Comes now to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!"
It was, however, a real voice though a faint one, that came next to his ears.
"You said these wild sheep were your people—that you owed them what you could give them—of leadership."
Boone wheeled, and his voice broke from him like a sob, as the watch slipped from his fingers and fell, shattered.
"Do you mean to go through with it—you and Morgan?"
But before she could shape a response, his hand came up and he went on in excited haste: "No, don't answer. You didn't come to answer questions." Then, with a long intake of breath and an abrupt change to flint hardness again, he added: "It was I who was to answer you. You are right. I was a damned quitter. These are my people, and I belong to them—but not to the feud-war, to myself—nor to you."
"Boone," began Anne Masters, but she got no further than that, for the man again raised a warning hand and spoke in a crisp whisper:
"Hush!" he commanded, and bent, listening.
In the distance a long whoop was dying away, and then after a moment of tense silence a cautious whistle sounded from the night outside. Boone took a step toward the door, and halted.