So when the light of the sun mellowed, grew yellow and slant, and the shadows sloped from tree to tree, the two became more silent still, drawn and pale of face, waiting.  Anthony at a window, Sally at a crack which made an excellent loophole, they remained moveless.

It was she who noted a niche which might serve as a loophole for one of the posse, and she fired at it, aiming low.  The clang of the bullet against rock echoes clearly back to her, like the soft chime of a sheep bell from the peaceful distance.  Then, as if in answer to her shot, around the edge of the rocks appeared a moving rag of white which grew into William Drew, bearing above his head the white sign of the truce.

In her astonishment she looked to Bard.  He was quivering all over like a hound held on a tight leash, with the game in sight, hungry to be slipped upon it.  The edge of his tongue passed across his colourless lips.  He was like a man who long has ridden the white-hot desert and is now about to drink.  There was the same wild gleam in his eyes; his hand shook with nervous eagerness as he shifted and balanced his revolver.  Listening, in her awe, she heard the sound of his increasing panting; a sound like the breath of a running man approaching her swiftly.

She slipped to his side.

“Anthony!”

He did not answer; his gun steadied; the barrel began to incline down; his left eye was squinting.  She dropped to her knees and seized his wrist.

“Anthony, what are you going to do?”

“It’s Drew!” he whispered, and she did not recognize his voice.  “It’s the grey man I’ve waited for.  It’s he!”

In such a tone a dying man might speak of his hope of heaven—­seeing it unroll before him in his delirium.

“But he’s carrying the flag of truce, Anthony.  You see that?”

“I see nothing except his face.  It blots out the rest of the world.  I’ll plant my shot there—­there in the middle of those lips.”

“Anthony, that’s William Drew, the squarest man on the range.”

“Sally Fortune, that’s William Drew, who murdered my father!”

“Ah!” she said, with sharply indrawn breath.  “It isn’t possible!”

“I saw the shot fired.”

“But not this way, Anthony; not from behind a wall!”

His emotion changed him, made him almost a stranger to her.  He was shaking and palsied with eagerness.

“I could do nothing as bad as the crime he has done.  For twenty years the dread of his coming haunted my father, broke him, aged him prematurely.  Every day he went to a secret room and cared for his revolver—­this gun here in my hand, you see?  He and I—­we were more than father and son—­we were pals, Sally.  And then this devil called my father out into the night and shot him.  Damn him!”

“You’ve got to listen to me, Anthony—­”

“I’ll listen to nothing, for there he is and—­”

She said with a sharp, rising ring in her voice:  “If you shoot at him while he carries that white flag I’ll—­I’ll send a bullet through your head—­that’s straight!  We got only one law in the mountains, and that’s the law of honour.  If you bust that, I’m done with you, Anthony.”