“What about the girl?” asked the big fellow curtly.

“Didn’t Rhinehart tell you?”

“Rhinehart’s a fool and so are the rest of them.  Have you gone loco too, Haines, to let a girl come here?”

“Where’s the harm?”

“Why, damn it, she’s marked every man here.”

“I let her in because she is trying to get hold of Whistling Dan.”

“Which no fool girl c’n take that feller off the trail.  Nothin’ but lead can do that.”

“I tell you,” said Haines, “the boy’s in love with her.  I watched them at Morgan’s place.  She can twist him around her finger.”

A faint light broke the gloom of Silent’s face.

“Yaller hair an’ blue eyes.  They c’n do a lot.  Maybe you’re right.  What’s that?” His voice had gone suddenly husky.

A russet moon pushed slowly up through the trees.  Its uncertain light fell across the clearing.  For the first time the thick pale smoke of the fire was visible, rising straight up until it cleared the tops of the willows, and then caught into swift, jagging lines as the soft wind struck it.  A coyote wailed from the distant hills, and before his complaint was done another sound came through the hushing of the willows, a melancholy whistling, thin with distance.

“We’ll see if that’s the man you want,” suggested Haines.

“I’ll go along,” said Shorty Rhinehart.

“And me too,” said a third.  The whole group would have accompanied them, but the heavy voice of Jim Silent cut in:  “You’ll stay here, all of you except the girl and Lee.”

They turned back, muttering, and Kate followed Haines into the willows.

“Well?” growled Bill Kilduff.

“What I want to know—­” broke in Terry Jordan.

“Go to hell with your questions,” said Silent, “but until you go there you’ll do what I say, understand?”

“Look here, Jim,” said Hal Purvis, “are you a king an’ we jest your slaves, maybe?”

“You’re goin’ it a pile too hard,” said Shorty Rhinehart.

Every one of these speeches came sharply out while they glared at Jim Silent.  Hands were beginning to fall to the hip and fingers were curving stiffly as if for the draw.  Silent leaned his broad shoulders against the side of his roan and folded his arms.  His eyes went round the circle slowly, lingering an instant on each face.  Under that cold stare they grew uneasy.  To Shorty Rhinehart it became necessary to push back his hat and scratch his forehead.  Terry Jordan found a mysterious business with his bandana.  Every one of them had occasion to raise his hand from the neighbourhood of his six-shooter.  Silent smiled.

“A fine, hard crew you are,” he said sarcastically at last.  “A great bunch of long riders, lettin’ a slip of a yaller-haired girl make fools of you.  You over there—­you, Shorty Rhinehart, you’d cut the throat of a man that looked crosswise at the Cumberland girl, wouldn’t you?  An’ you, Purvis, you’re aching to get at me, ain’t you?  An’ you’re still thinkin’ of them blue eyes, Jordan?”