"Maybe not," replied Curly, "but both halfs of this here amanyensis is goin' over there together. I told that girl that Dan Anderson was shot to a finish and just about to cash in. Now here's all this hoorah about his bein' put up for Congress! I dunno what she'll find when she gets into that house, but whichever way it goes, she's due to think I'm a damned liar. You come along, or I'll take you over on a rope."
The two conspirators crossed the arroyo and paused at the path which led up to Dan Anderson's little cabin. They saw Mr. Ellsworth and Constance leave the buckboard and stop uncertainly at the door. They saw him knock and step half within, then withdraw and gently push his daughter ahead of him. Then he stood outside, his hat in hand, violently mopping his brow. As he caught sight of the two laggards he beckoned them peremptorily.
"O Lord!" moaned Tom Osby; "now here's what that sheepherder done to us, with his missive and his signet ring."
Constance Ellsworth had grown deadly pale as she approached the dwelling. The open door let in upon a darkened interior. There was no light, no ray of hope to comfort her. There, as it seemed to her, in that tomblike abode, lay the end of all her happiness. In her heart was only the prayer that she might find him able, still to recognize her.
At her father's gesture she stepped to the door—and stopped. The blood went first to her heart, and then flamed back into her face. Her cheeks tingled. Her hand fell lax from the door jamb, and she half staggered against it for support, limp and helpless.
There before her, and busily engaged in writing—so busy that he had merely called out a careless invitation to enter when he heard the knock of what he presumed to be a chance caller—there, perhaps a trifle pale, but certainly well, and very much himself, sat Dan Anderson!
"He's alive!" whispered Constance to her heart.
"He's going to live!"
The future delegate from the Territory had slunk away from the noisy street to pen some line of acknowledgment to his friend the sheriff of Blanco. He had succeeded, so he reasoned with himself insistently; and yet a strange apathy, a sadness rather than exultation, enveloped him. The world lay dull and gray around him. The price of his success had been the sight of a face worth more to him than all else in the world. He had won something, but had lost everything. His hand stopped, his pencil fell upon the paper. He looked up—to see her standing at his door!
Dumb, unbelieving, he gazed and gazed. She turned from red to pale, before his eyes, and still he could not speak. He knew that in an instant the vision would fade away.