He looked up at the stars, and the old wonder and doubt came back to him—the old doubt which made him say to himself: “It is nothing—it is the end. Dust thou art, and unto dust—dust—dust—dust—” he bit his tongue to keep from saying it again—“Dust—to be blown away and mingle with the elements—dust! And yet, I stand here—now—blood—flesh—a thinking man—tempted—terribly—cruelly—poignantly—dying—of a poison in my veins—of sorrow in my heart—sorrow and death. Who would not take the dust—gladly take it—the dust and the—forgetting.”
He remembered and repeated:
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar—”
“'And cometh from afar,'” he whispered—“My God—suppose it does—and that I am mistaken in it all?—Dust—and then maybe something after dust.”
With his rifle in his hand, it all vanished and he began to train it on the tall figure while the mob prepared to storm the jail again—and his shot would be the signal—this time in desperate determination to take it or die.
In the mob near Richard Travis stood a boy, careless and cool, and holding in his hand an old pistol. Richard Travis noticed the boy because he felt that the boy's eyes were always on him—always. When he looked down into them he was touched and sighed, and a dream of the long-ago swept over him—of a mountain cabin and a maiden fair to look upon. He bit his lip to keep back the tenderness—bit his lip and rode away—out of reach of the boy's eyes.
But the boy, watching him, knew, and he said in his quiet, revengeful way: “Twice have I failed to kill you—but to-night—my Honorable father—to-night in the death that will be here, I shall put this bullet through your heart.”
Travis turned to the mob: “Men, when I fire this rifle—it will mean for you to charge!”
A hush fell over the crowd as they watched him. He looked at his rifle closely. He sprang the breech and threw out a shell or two to see that it worked properly.
“Stay where you are, men,” came that same voice they had heard so plainly before that night. “We are now four and well armed and sworn to uphold the law and protect the prisoner, and if you cross the dead line you will die.”