The miner cursed him in a strained voice and the come and go of his breath was swift and irregular. He trembled violently. All the brooding he had experienced in the last months, all the strain of waiting he had known in the recent days, the conviction that his hour of accomplishment was at hand, and the sudden, overwhelming sense of physical helplessness that was now on him combined to render his anger that of a child. He attempted to hold back, but Bayard jerked him forward and, half dragged, half carried, he entered the kitchen of the cabin he had helped build, which had been stolen from him and which was now to be his prison at the moment when he had planned to make his title to the property good by killing....
Bayard, too, trembled, and his gray eyes glittered. He breathed through his lips and was conscious that his mouth was very dry. His movements were feverish and he handled Lynch as though he were so much insensate matter.
Benny protested volubly, shouting and screaming and kicking, trying to resist with all his bodily force, but Bruce did not seem to hear him. He handled his captive with a peculiar abstraction in spite of the fact that they struggled constantly.
Bayard kicked a chair away from the table, forced Lynch into it and holding him fast with one arm, drew the dangling bridle reins through the spindles of the back and lashed the miner's bound wrists there securely.
"I can't help it, Benny," he said, hurriedly and earnestly, as he straightened. "You and I ... we'll have this out afterwards.... Your gun ... I'll leave it here,"—putting the weapon on top of a battered cupboard that stood against the wall behind Benny.
"I'm goin' down to turn him back towards town, Benny.... I won't give you away; he won't know you're here, but I've got to do it myself. I can't let you kill him to-day.... I can't, because I'm to blame for his comin' here!"
He was gone then, with a thudding of boots and a ringing of spurs as he ran from the room, struck into the trail and went down among the pines at a pace which threatened a nasty fall at every stride. And Benny, left alone, whimpered aloud and tugged ineffectually at the knots which held him captive in his chair. After a short interval, he stopped the struggling and strained forward to listen. No sound reached his ears except the low, sweet, throaty tweeting of quail as they ran swiftly over the rocks, under a clump of brush and disappeared. The world was very quiet and peaceful ... only in the man's heart was storm....
Bayard ran on down the trail toward the edge of the timber where he might look out on the valley and see those two riders he had followed and passed without seeing. He had no plan. He would tell Lytton to go back, would make him go back, with nothing but his will and his naked hands. He wanted to laugh as he ran, for his relief was great; there was to be no killing that day, no blood was to be on his conscience, no tragedy was to stand between him and the woman who had called for aid.
His pace became reckless, for the descent was steep and, when he emerged from the timber, his whole attention was centered on keeping himself upright and overcoming his momentum. When he could stop, he lifted his eyes to the country below him, searched quickly for the figures of Ned and his wife and swore in perplexity. He did not see sign of a moving creature. He knew that there was no depression in that part of the valley deep enough to hide them from him as he stood on that vantage point. Had Lynch been mistaken? Had he deceived him artfully?
He looked about bewildered, wholly at a loss to explain the situation. Then ran on, searching the trail for indication of passing horses. They could not have turned back and ridden from sight in the short time that had elapsed since Benny saw them ... if he had seen them. Where could they go, but on to the mine?