“I’m tired of those guys,” he remarked to Craig with a grin. “Guess I’ll stay here for a bit.”
Craig was left alone for a few minutes. Suddenly Marta glided in and sat by his side. Her eyes were flashing with anger.
“You know what they said, those two, as they passed out?” she whispered hoarsely. “I heard them. They are going to board the eight-thirty train to-morrow morning. The dark man turned and said to the other—‘If he is not on that, we’ll wait till we find him. Once we get him in New York, he’s our man.’”
A little exclamation of anger broke from Craig’s lips. The girl caught at his arm.
“Don’t go,” she begged. “Don’t go. There are plenty of places near here where you can hide, where we could go together and live quite simply. I’d work for you. Take me away from this, somewhere over the hills. Don’t go to New York. They are cruel, those men. They are hunting you—I can see it in their faces.”
Craig shook his head sadly.
“Little girl,” he said, “I should like to go with you along that valley and over the hills and forget that I had ever lived in any other world. But I can’t do it. There’s a child there now, on the ocean, nearer to New York every day, my sister’s own child and no one to meet her. And—there are the other things. I have sinned and I must pay…. My God!”
The room suddenly rang with Marta’s shriek. Through the open window by which they were sitting, an arm wrapped in a serape had suddenly hovered over them. Craig, in starting back, had just escaped the downward blow of the knife, which had buried itself in Marta’s arm. She fell back, screaming.
“It’s José!” she cried. “The brute! The beast!”
Craig swung to his feet, furious. Long Jim, cursing fiercely, drew his gun. At that moment the door of the saloon was thrown open. José came reeling in, his serape over his shoulder, a drunken grin on his face. He staggered towards them.