"Did you see Wetzel again?"
"Once, about a quarter of a mile behind me. He was staggering along on my trail."
At this juncture there was a commotion among the settlers crowding behind Colonel Zane and Jonathan, and Helen Sheppard appeared, white, with her big eyes strangely dilated.
"Oh!" she cried breathlessly, clasping both hands around Jonathan's arm. "I'm not too late? You're not going to——"
"Helen, this is no place for you," said Colonel Zane sternly. "This is business for men. You must not interfere."
Helen gazed at him, at Brandt, and then up at the borderman. She did not loose his arm.
"Outside some one told me you intended to shoot him. Is it true?"
Colonel Zane evaded the searching gaze of those strained, brilliant eyes. Nor did he answer.
As Helen stepped slowly back a hush fell upon the crowd. The whispering, the nervous coughing, and shuffling of feet, ceased.
In those around her Helen saw the spirit of the border. Colonel Zane and Silas wore the same look, cold, hard, almost brutal. The women were strangely grave. Nellie Douns' sweet face seemed changed; there was pity, even suffering on it, but no relenting. Even Betty's face, always so warm, piquant, and wholesome, had taken on a shade of doubt, of gloom, of something almost sullen, which blighted its dark beauty. What hurt Helen most cruelly was the borderman's glittering eyes.