“I knowed it!” he said softly.

The wind whistled somewhere in the house and it brought Buck Daniels leaping to his feet and into the centre of the room.

“He’s here!” he yelled.  “God help me, where’ll I go now!  He’s here!”

He had drawn his revolver and stood staring desperately about him as if he sought for a refuge in the solid wall.  Almost instantly he recovered himself, however, and dropped the gun back into the holster.

“No, not yet,” he said, more to himself than the others.  “It ain’t possible, even for Dan.”

Kate Cumberland rallied herself, though her face was still white.  She stepped to Buck and took both his hands.

“You’ve been working yourself to death,” she said gently.  “Buck, you’re hysterical.  What have you to fear from Dan?  Isn’t he your friend?  Hasn’t he proved it a thousand times?”

Her words threw him into a fresh frenzy.

“If he gets me, it’s blood on your head, Kate.  It was for you I done it.”

“No, no, Buck.  For Dan’s sake alone.  Isn’t that enough?”

“For his sake?” Buck threw back his head and laughed—­a crazy laughter.  “He could rot in hell for all of me.  He could foller his wild geese around the world.  Kate, it was for you!”

“Hush!” she pleaded.  “Buck, dear!”

“Do I care who knows it?  Not I!  I got an hour—­half an hour to live; and while I live the whole damned world can know I love you, Kate, from your spurs to the blue of your eyes.  For your sake I brung him, and for your sake I’ll fight him, damn him, in spite——­”

The wind wailed again, far off, and Buck Daniels cowered back against the wall.  He had drawn Kate with him, and he now kept her before him, towards the door.

He began to whisper, swiftly, with a horrible tremble in his voice:  “Stand between me, Kate.  Stand between me and him.  Talk for me, Kate.  Will you talk for me?” He drew himself up and caught a long, shuddering breath.  “What have I been doin’?  What have I been ravin’ about?”

He looked about as if he saw the others for the first time.

“Sit here, Buck,” said Kate, with perfect quiet.  “Give me your hat.  There’s nothing to fear.  Now tell us.”

“A whole day and a whole night,” he said, “I been riding with the fear of him behind me.  Kate, I ain’t myself, and if I been sayin’ things——­”

“No matter.  Only tell me how you made him follow you.”

Buck Daniels swept his knuckles across his forehead, as though to rub out a horrible memory.

“Kate,” he said in a voice which was hardly more than a whisper, “why did he follow Jim Silent?”

The doctor slipped into a chair opposite Buck Daniels and watched him with unbelieving eyes.  When he had last seen Buck the man had seemed an army in himself; but now a shivering, unmanned coward sat before him.  Byrne glanced at Kate Cumberland for explanation of the mysterious change.  She, also, was transformed with horror, and she stared at Buck Daniels as at one already among the dead.