“Lou Macon,” said Donnegan.

Jack Landis rose from his chair, and it was not until he stood so close to Donnegan that the latter realized the truly Herculean proportions of the young fellow.  He bowed his excuses to Nelly Lebrun, not without grace of manner, and then huddled Donnegan into a corner with a wave of his vast arm.

“Now what do you want?  Who are you?  Who put that name in your mouth?”

“She’s in The Corner,” said Donnegan, and he dwelt upon the face of Jack Landis with feverish suspense.  A moment later a great weight had slipped from his heart.  If Lou Macon loved Landis it was beyond peradventure that Landis was not breaking his heart because of the girl.  For at her name he flushed darkly, and then, that rush of color fading, he was left with a white spot in the center of each cheek.

13

First his glance plunged into vacancy; then it flicked over his shoulder at Nelly Lebrun and he bit his lip.  Plainly, it was not the most welcome news that Jack Landis had ever heard.

“Where is she?” he asked nervously of Donnegan, and he looked over the ragged fellow again.

“I’ll take you to her.”

The big man swayed back and forth from foot to foot, balancing in his hesitation.  “Wait a moment.”

He strode to Nelly Lebrun and bent over her; Donnegan saw her eyes flash up—­oh, heart of the south, what eyes of shadow and fire!  Jack Landis trembled under the glance; yes, he was deeply in love with the girl.  And Donnegan watched her face shade with suspicion, stiffen with cold anger, warm and soften again under the explanations of Jack Landis.

Donnegan, looking from the distance, could read everything; it is nearness that bewitches a man when he talks to a woman.  When Odysseus talked to Circe, no doubt he stood on the farther side of the room!

When Landis came again, he was perspiring from the trial of fire through which he had just passed.

“Come,” he ordered, and set out at a sweeping stride.

Plainly he was anxious to get this matter done with as soon as possible.  As for Donnegan, he saw a man whom Landis had summoned to take his place sit down at the table with Nelly Lebrun.  She was laughing with the newcomer as though nothing troubled her at all, but over his shoulder her glance probed the distance and followed Jack Landis.  She wanted to see the messenger again, the man who had called her companion away; but in this it was fox challenging fox.  Donnegan took note and was careful to place between him and the girl every pillar and every group of people.  As far as he was concerned, her first glance must do to read and judge and remember him by.

Outside Landis shot several questions at him in swift succession; he wanted to know how the girl had happened to make the trip.  Above all, what the colonel was thinking and doing and if the colonel himself had come.  But Donnegan replied with monosyllables, and Landis, apparently reconciling himself to the fact that the messenger was a fool, ceased his questions.  They kept close to a run all the way out of the camp and up the hillside to the two detached tents where Donnegan and the girl slept that night.  A lantern burned in both the tents.