"Why do you talk like that ... what is the matter?"
His bitter laughter set her nerves quivering.
"Is the gold here, Lynette? Or is it some miles away, with Bruce Standing already sinking his claws into it, Standing style?"
Again her eyes left him, returning across the gorge to the farther wooded lands. Over there was a road, the road into which she and Babe Deveril had turned briefly that night, a thousand years ago, when they had fled from Big Pine in the dark; a road which led to Bruce Standing's headquarters. From the top of the cliffs she caught a glimpse of the road, winding among the trees; her eyes were fixedly upon it; her lips were moving softly, though the words were not for Babe Deveril's ears.
"Lynette," he said in that strangely tense and quiet voice, "if you have been fool enough to try to put something over on this crowd.... Can't you guess how you'd fare in Jim Taggart's hands?"
She was not looking at him; she did not appear to mark his words. He saw a sudden change in her expression; she started and the blood rushed back into her cheeks and her eyes brightened. He looked where she was looking. Far across the cañon, rising up among the trees, was a cloud of dust. Some one was riding there, riding furiously....
Together they watched, waiting for that some one to appear in the one spot where the winding road could be glimpsed through the trees. And in a moment they saw not one man only, but a dozen or a score of men, men stooping in their saddles and riding hard, veiled in the rising dust puffing up under their horses' flying feet. Now and then came a pale glint of the sun striking upon the rifles which, to the last man, they carried. They came into view with a rush, were gone with a rush. The great cloud of dust rose and thinned and disappeared.
"That road will bring them down into Light Ladies' Gulch where it makes the wide loop about three miles from here," said Deveril. "Have you an idea who they are, Lynette?"
"No," she said, her lips dry; "I don't understand."
"I think that I do understand," he told her, with a flash of anger. "Those are Standing's men and they are riding, armed, like the mill-tails of hell. Listen to me while you've got the chance! That's not the first bunch of men who have ridden over there like that to-day. Two hours ago, when you went down the cliffs with the others and I stopped up here, I saw the same sort of thing happening. If you're so innocent," he sneered at her, "I'll read you the riddle. I've told you those are Standing's men; then why the devil are they riding like that and in such numbers? They're going straight down into the Gulch where the gold is while you hold us back, up here. And Standing is paying off an old grudge and jamming more gold into his bulging pockets.... And you've got some men to reckon with in ten minutes who'll make you sorry that you were ever born a girl!"