He came back in the silence always to that if. It rose dark between him and the woman he loved––whom he had loved since she was a child with school-girl eyes and braided hair. After he had lost her, only to find years afterward that she was hardly less wretched in her life than he in his, he had dreamed of the day when she might again be free and he free to win a love long hoped for.
But to slay this man––her husband––in his inmost heart he felt it would mean the raising of a bar as impalpable as fate, and as undying, to all his dreams. Deserved or not, whatever she should say or not say, what would she feel? How could 354 her husband’s death in that encounter, if it ever came, be other than a stain that must shock and wound her, no matter how much she should try not to see. Could either of them ever quite forget it?
Kennedy and his men were guarding the Cache. Could they be sent against Sinclair? That would be only a baser sort of murder––the murder of his friends. He himself was leader, and so looked upon; the post of danger was his.
He raised his head. Through the window came a faint light. The moon was rising, and against the inner wall of the room the straight, hard lines of the old wardrobe rose dimly. The rifles were within. He must choose.
He walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside. It was dark everywhere across the upper town, but in the distance one light burned. It was in Marion’s cottage. He had chosen this room because from the window he could see her home. He stood for a few moments with his hands in his pockets, looking. When he turned away he drew the shade closely, lighted a lamp, and unlocked the wardrobe door.
Scott left the barn at half-past ten with a led horse for Whispering Smith. He rode past 355 Smith’s room in Fort Street, but the room was dark, and he jogged down to the Wickiup square, where he had been told to meet him. After waiting and riding about for an hour, he tied the horses and went up to McCloud’s office. McCloud was at his desk, but knew nothing of Whispering Smith except that he was to come in before he started. “He’s a punctual man,” murmured Bob Scott, who had the low voice of the Indian. “Usually he is ahead of time.”
“Is he in his room, do you think?” asked McCloud.
“I rode around that way about fifteen minutes ago; there was no light.”