“And be quiet. Don’t let Harkness, should he come down from above, see that you’ve got a bit of hope. He is keen, and if he suspects anything the whole job is gone up; for he could block the secret passage just as easy as he did the pass out there.”
“Do not fear for my betrayal by look or word. I will be apparently asleep, should you return, but wide awake enough to do any duty which comes up.”
“All right. Trust me now, as I trust you.”
The man took the hasty note which Mainwaring wrote to Buffalo Bill, and in another moment he was out of sight.
Mainwaring, placing the treasured revolver in his pocket, now went back to the place where a heap of blankets had been pointed out by Harkness as his sleeping place.
Here he sat down, and drawing his hat well over his brows, watched, as calmly as he could, the faces of the girls, the comic looks of Ben, and the mingled expressions that came and went on the face of the creature Lize—for it would be an insult to the sex to call her woman.
And he waited—for what, he could hardly tell. If the man, whose name, even, he did not know, for it was so unimportant he had not asked it, was faithful to his promise in a little while his friends would be there, able and willing to rescue and protect those who had become the objects of his dearest interest.
He had not known May long, yet his whole heart had gone out to her, and he felt as if he would rather die with her there than live and leave her behind.
He could see her beautiful, intelligent face, with the flickering light of the fire now making it a glory and then leaving it in shadow; her eyes, despite all this trouble, so full of womanly expression, telling that no matter where the soul is its mirror is the eye—and he felt as if he could worship her.
A noise from men advancing attracted the attention of Mainwaring now, and he turned, to see Bill Harkness coming toward him, leaning on the arm of one of his men.