“Miss Waverly?” he whispered softly.

She was at his side, close to him, so close that he could feel the sweep of her skirts against his boots.  She, too, had leaned forward, her face lifted up to his, her eyes seeking to make sure who this man was.

“Buck Thornton?” she whispered back.

“Yes.  What is it?”

“Here.  Quick!” She had thrust a folded paper into his fingers, closing them tightly upon it.  “Now, go!  Do what I tell you in it.  Henry Pollard suspects something; he is looking for me.  Go quickly!”

She was already passing him, hastening toward the steps and the front door.

“Wait!” he commanded, his hand hard upon her arm.  “I don’t understand....”

“For God’s sake let me go!” Only a whisper, but he thought he heard a quiver of terror in it, he knew that her arm was trembling violently.  “He’d kill me. ...  Oh, my God, go!”

“If there is danger for you...”

“There is none if you go now ... if he doesn’t find me here.  Please, Buck....”

She jerked away from him and went swiftly to the steps.  He could hear her every step now so plainly his heart stood still with fear that Pollard must hear, too.  He heard her go to the door; she passed on, and so became one with the blot of darkness within the house.  Then he drew back, slowly, half regretfully, back toward the gate, stopping for a last time under the trees there.  And after a very long time he heard Pollard’s steps again.  The man had made a tour of his grounds, keeping rather close to the house, and now mounted the steps with no effort at silence, slammed the door and dropped the bars into place.  It was as though he had flung them angrily into their sockets.  Thornton went out of the yard and to his waiting horse.

“She says to go away, to leave her there alone with Pollard,” he muttered dully.  “And something’s up.  She said he’d kill her if he knew that she was talking to me...”

He hesitated, his horse’s tie rope in his hand, of half a mind to go back, to force his way into Henry Pollard’s house, to demand to know what was wrong, to take the girl away if there were real danger to her.  But then the urgent pleading in her voice came back to him, her insistence that he go, that with him gone there would no longer be any danger for her.  Slowly, regretfully, he swung into the saddle.  He had made up his mind.  He would obey her at least in part, he would go where he could read the paper she had given him, and then perhaps he would understand.

“Any way,” he said under his breath, “she’s a real girl for you.”

He rode swiftly the five hundred yards through the dark street which ran as nearly parallel with the main street as two such crooked streets could approximate parallelism, until he was behind the Here’s How Saloon.  Here he dismounted and, leaving his horse with reins thrown over his head to the ground, strode off toward the side door of the saloon.