A moment ago he had but the one firm intention: To set her free and be rid of her for all time. Now, not ten seconds after holding that purpose, he was rushing after her, forgetful of everything, his wounds and sick weariness, except his one determination to drag her back! He was angry; in his anger, not admitting to himself the true explanation, he felt that he must blame her for a third crime ... she had trifled with the integrity of his dog's loyalty ... she had corrupted old Thor's sturdy honesty....
She ran like a deer. The moment that she broke into headlong flight that very act released within her a full tide of fright; it became a panic like that of soldiers once they have thrown down their arms and plunged into the delirium of disordered retreat. She ran as she had never done before, even when she and Babe Deveril had fled through the night. And Bruce Standing would never have come up with her that night had it not been that in the dark she fell, stumbling over the low mound left to mark the place where an ancient log had disintegrated. As she floundered to her feet she felt his hand on her shoulder. She screamed, she struck at him....
He caught her two hands as he had done once before; she could have no inkling of the tremendous call he put upon himself, body and will; she could hear his heavy, labored breathing, but she, too, was breathing in gasps. She could see neither the whiteness of his face nor yet the blood soaking his shirt. He did not speak. He was not thinking clearly. He merely said within himself: "I got her!" That was everything. Until, as they came again into the outward-pouring firelight in front of the cabin door, he wondered somewhat uneasily: "What am I going to do with her?"
Lynette, panting and piteously shaken, dropped down on the edge of the bunk, overborne by disaster, hopeless, her face in her hands; she was fighting with herself against a burst of tears. Thus she did not see Bruce Standing as he stood at the threshold, looking at her. She heard his step; it shuffled and was uncertain, but she did not at the moment mark this. She heard a whine from old Thor, a Thor perplexed and ill at ease.
... Suddenly she thought: "He hasn't moved; he hasn't spoken!" She dropped her hands then and looked up swiftly. And, thus, she surprised a queer look in his eyes; his own thoughts were all chaotic and yet there was beginning to burn one steady thought among them like one bright flame in a whirl of smoke. He had closed the door when they came in; he had sat down upon the up-ended log which served here as a chair; Thor's head was on the master's knee and absently Standing's hand was stroking it. He had dropped his rifle outside when he started to run after her; he had not stopped to look for it as they came in. She saw that a revolver was half in and half out of his pocket.... Then she marked, with a start, the dead-white of his face and the way his left arm hung limp, and the red stain on his wrist and the back of his hand where the blood had run down his sleeve. Her first thought was of his old wound and how he was not the man to give a wound a chance to heal, but rather would break it open again and again through his violence. Then she recalled what, during these last few minutes she had forgotten—the shots which she had heard a little while ago. And she knew that, though he sat upright and stared at her with the old look again in his eyes, he had been shot the second time.
"I brought you back, girl," he said at last, and she knew that he was bending a vast resource of will to keep his tone clear and steady, "not because I mean to keep you any longer ... but just to show you that with all the tricks of your sex you can take no step that I do not tell you to take! Now, I've the idea that I'd like best to be alone. You can go."
In a flash she jumped to her feet; she would scarcely credit her ears, and yet one look at the man told her reassuringly that he was in earnest.
"I don't know where you'll go," he said. "And I don't care. But I can tell you you'll find some good men and true, men of your own kind, since they shoot in the back, down below my other cabin; Taggart and Gallup and Shipton.... No, your friend Baby Devil isn't there! And Mexicali Joe has skipped out. If you like to take your chances with those birds...." He jerked out the revolver which recently had been Taggart's and tossed it to the bunk. "You can take that along, if you like."
She flushed up, her face as hot as fire, as he jeered at her, saying: "Men of your own kind, since they shoot in the back!" ... She could come close to an accurate guess of what had happened; since Mexicali Joe was gone it must be that Standing had set him free; since Standing returned with a fresh wound, it must be that Taggart or one of his crowd had shot him in the back....