* * * * *

Tex Calder prided himself on being a light sleeper.  Years spent in constant danger enabled him to keep his sense of hearing alert even when he slept.  He had never been surprised.  It was his boast that he never would be.  Therefore when a hand dropped lightly on his shoulder he started erect from his blankets with a curse and grasped his revolver.  A strong grip on his wrist paralysed his fingers.  Whistling Dan leaned above him.

“Wake up,” said the latter.

“What the devil—­” breathed the marshal.  “You travel like a cloud shadow, Dan.  You make no sound.”

“Wake up and talk to me.”

“I’m awake all right.  What’s happened?”

There was a moment of silence while Dan seemed to be trying for speech.

Black Bart, at the other side of the clearing, pointed his nose at the yellow moon and wailed.  He was very close, but the sound was so controlled that it seemed to come at a great distance from some wild spirit wandering between earth and heaven.

Instead of speaking Dan jumped to his feet and commenced pacing up and down, up and down, a rapid, tireless stride; at his heels the wolf slunk, with lowered head and tail.  The strange fellow was in some great trouble, Calder could see, and it stirred him mightily to know that the wild man had turned to him for help.  Yet he would ask no questions.

When in doubt the cattleman rolls a cigarette, and that was what Calder did.  He smoked and waited.  At last the inevitable came.

“How old are you, Tex?”

“Forty-four.”

“That’s a good deal.  You ought to know something.”

“Maybe.”

“About women?”

“Ah!” said Calder.

“Bronchos is cut out chiefly after one pattern,” went on Dan.

“They’s chiefly jest meanness.  Are women the same—­jest cut after one pattern?”

“What pattern, Dan?”

“The pattern of Delilah!  They ain’t no trust to be put in ’em?”

“A good many of us have found that out.”

“I thought one woman was different from the rest.”

“We all think that.  Woman in particular is divine; woman in general is—­hell!”

“Ay, but this one—­” He stopped and set his teeth.

“What has she done?”

“She—­” he hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice did not tremble; there was a deep hurt and wonder in it:  “She double-crossed me!”

“When?  Do you mean to say you’ve met a woman tonight out here among the willows?—­Where—­how——­”

“Tex——!”

“Ay, Dan.”

“It’s—­it’s hell!”

“It is now.  But you’ll forget her!  The mountains, the desert, and above all, time—­they’ll cure you, my boy.”

“Not in a whole century, Tex.”

Calder waited curiously for the explanation.  It came.

“Jest to think of her is like hearing music.  Oh, God, Tex, what c’n I do to fight agin this here cold feelin’ at my heart?”