And then, with a splendid piece of bravery, he turned his back on the gambler, walking away with never a backward glance.  He did not go directly home, but walked for an indeterminate interval till his spirit was more calm.

The house was dark.  Inez had obeyed him by leaving no trace of light.  Doubtless by now they had retired.  Suddenly he started, peered more closely at the door he was about to enter.

It was slightly ajar.  On the threshold, as he threw it open, Adrian found a lace-edged handkerchief.  His wife’s.

Filled with quick foreboding, he called her name.  His voice sounded hollow, strange, as if an empty house.  Tremblingly he struck a light and searched the inner room.  The bed had not been slept in.  There was no one to be seen.

CHAPTER XXII

SHOTS IN THE DARK

Frantically Adrian ran out into the darkness, crying his wife’s name.  His thought went, with swift apprehension, over the events of recent hours.  The villainous face of Ned Gasket passed before his memory mockingly; the meaning look McTurpin gave his henchman at the gaming table.  Finally, with double force, that movement in the bushes as he told the gambler of his former captive’s whereabouts.  By what absurd imprudence had he laid himself thus open to the scoundrel’s swift attack?  What farther whimsy of an unkind Fate had prompted his long walk?

Sudden fury flamed in Stanley’s heart; it steadied him.  The twitching fingers on the pistol in his pocket relaxed into a calm and settled tension.  With long strides he made his way toward Brown’s hotel.

There was death in his eyes; men who caught their gleam beneath a lamplight, hastily avoided him.  That Inez—­at this time—­should have been taken from her home, abducted, frightened or harassed, was the sin unpardonable.  For it he meant to exact a capital punishment.  The law, just then, meant to him nothing; only the primitive instinct of an outraged man controlled his mind.

At the bar he paused.  “Where’s McTurpin, where’s Gasket?” he demanded, harshly.

The bartender observed him with suspicion and uneasiness.  “Don’t know.  Haven’t seen ’em since they started out with you,” he answered.

Stanley left the room without another word.

He struck across the Plaza, entering the Eldorado gambling house.  There he ordered a drink, gulped it, made, more quietly, a survey of the room.  He scanned the players carefully.  Spear sat at one of the tables, toying with a pile of chips and stroking his chin reflectively as he surveyed three cards.

“Give me two.  Hello, there, Adrian.  Good Lord! what’s up?”

“Have you seen McTurpin or his friend, Ned Gasket?” He tried to speak quietly.

A miner at another table leaned forward.  “Try the stalls, pard,” he whispered, while his left eyelid descended meaningly.