“It isn’t possible!” cried Kate.  “That means that Silent is giving himself up to the law!”

Buck laughed bitterly.

“The law will not put a hand on them if it thinks that they’ll fight it out together,” he said.

“There’ll be a crowd in the saloon, but not a hand will stir to arrest Silent till after the fight.”

“But Dan won’t go to Tully’s,” broke in old Joe.  “If Silent is crazy enough to do such a thing, Dan won’t be.”

“He will,” said Kate.  “I know!”

“You’ve got to stop him,” urged Buck.  “You’ve got to get to Elkhead and turn Dan back.”

“Ay,” said Joe, “for even if he kills Silent, the crowd will tackle him after the fight—­a hundred against one.”

She shook her head.

“You won’t go?”

“Not a step.”

“But Kate, don’t you understand—?”

“I couldn’t turn Dan back.  There is his chance to meet Silent.  Do you dream any one could turn him back?”

The two men were mute.

“You’re right,” said Buck at last.  “I hoped for a minute that you could do it, but now I remember the way he was in that dark shanty up the Bald-eagle Creek.  You can’t turn a wolf from a trail, and Whistling Dan has never forgotten the taste of his own blood.”

“Kate!” called her father suddenly.  “What’s the matter, honey?”

With bowed head and a faltering step she was leaving the room.  Buck caught old Joe by the arm and held him back as he would have followed.

“Let her be!” said Buck sharply.  “Maybe she’ll want to see you at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, but until then she’ll want to be alone.  There’ll be ghosts enough with her all the time.  You c’n lay to that.”

Joe Cumberland wiped his glistening forehead.

“There ain’t nothin’ we c’n do, Buck, but sit an’ wait.”

Buck drew a long breath.

“What devil gave Silent that idea?”

“Fear!”

“Jim Silent don’t know what fear is!”

“Any one who’s seen the yaller burn in Dan’s eyes knows what fear is.”

Buck winced.

Cumberland went on:  “Every night Silent has been seein’ them eyes that glow yaller in the dark.  They lie in wait for him in every shadow.  Between dark and dawn he dies a hundred deaths.  He can’t stand it no more.  He’s goin’ to die.  Somethin’ tells him that.  But he wants to die where they’s humans around him, and when he dies he wants to pull Dan down with him.”

They sat staring at each other for a time.

“If he lives through that fight with Silent,” said Buck sadly, “the crowd will jump in on him.  Their numbers’ll make ’em brave.”

“An’ then?”

“Then maybe he’d like a friend to fight by his side,” said Buck simply.  “So long, Joe!”

The old man wrung his hand and then followed him out to the hitching-rack where Buck’s horse stood.

“Ain’t Dan got no friends among the crowd?” asked Cumberland.  “Don’t they give him no thanks for catching the rest of Silent’s gang?”