She rose and stood before him, putting a comradely hand on his shoulder, and looking him fairly in the eyes.

“There was a ring of sincerity in that, Howard.  Do you really mean that there is likely to be violence?”

“I do; it is almost certain to come.  The trouble has been brewing for a long time—­ever since I came here, in fact.  And there is nothing we can do to prevent it.  All we can do is to meet it when it does come, and fight it out.”

“‘We,’ you say; who else besides yourself, Howard?” she asked.

“A little handful of loyal ones.”

“Then you will be outnumbered?”

“Six to one here in town if the shopmen go out.  They have already threatened to burn the company’s buildings if I don’t comply with their demands, and I know the temper of the outfit well enough to give it full credit for any violence it promises.  Won’t you go and persuade the others to consent to run for it, Eleanor?  It is simply the height of folly for you to hold the Nadia here.  If I could have had ten words with your father this morning before he went out to the mine, you would all have been in Copah, long ago.  Even now, if I could get word to him, I’m sure he would order the car out at once.”

She nodded.

“Perhaps he would; quite likely he would—­and he would stay here himself.”  Then, suddenly:  “You may send the Nadia back to Copah on one condition—­that you go with it.”

At first he thought it was a deliberate insult; the cruelest indignity she had ever put upon him.  Knowing his weakness, she was good-natured enough, or solicitous enough, to try to get him out of harm’s way.  Then the steadfast look in her eyes made him uncertain.

“If I thought you could say that, realizing what it means—­” he began, and then he looked away.

“Well?” she prompted, and the hand slipped from his shoulder.

His eyes were coming back to hers.  “If I thought you meant that,” he repeated; “if I believed that you could despise me so utterly as to think for a moment that I would deliberately turn my back upon my responsibilities here—­go away and hunt safety for myself, leaving the men who have stood by me to whatever——­”

“You are making it a matter of duty,” she interrupted quite gravely.  “I suppose that is right and proper.  But isn’t your first duty to yourself and to those who—­” She paused, and then went on in the same steady tone:  “I have been hearing some things to-day—­some of the things you said I would hear.  You are well hated in the Red Desert, Howard—­hated so fiercely that this quarrel with your men will be almost a personal one.”

“I know,” he said.

“They will kill you, if you stay here and let them do it.”

“Quite possibly.”

“Howard!  Do you tell me you can stay here and face all this without flinching?”

“Oh, no; I didn’t say that.”

“But you are facing it!”