“Git!”

“Yes’m,” was his meek answer, though he called back as he disappeared:  “Been blackenin’ my boots.”

The Girl took up the word quickly.

“Boots!  Yes, an’ look at them boots!” And as each man came up to her, “An’ them boots! an’ them boots!  Get in there the whole lot o’ you an’ be sure that you leave your whisky behind.”

When all had left the room save Nick, who stood with her cape on his arm near the desk she suddenly became conscious that she still had her hood on, and at once began to remove it—­a proceeding which brought out clearly the extraordinary pallor of her face which, generally, had a bright, healthy colouring.  Now she beckoned to Nick to draw near.  No need for her to speak, for he had caught the questioning look in her eyes, and it told him plainer than any words that she was anxious to hear of her lover.  He was about to tell her the little he knew when with lips that trembled she finally whispered: 

“Have you heard anythin’?  Do you think he got through safe?”

Nick nodded in the affirmative.

“I saw ’im off, you know,” she went on in the same low voice; then, before Nick could speak, she concluded anxiously:  “But s’pose he don’t git through?”

“Oh, he’ll git through sure!  We’ll hear he’s out of this country pretty quick,” consoled the little barkeeper just as Rance, unperceived by them, quietly entered the room and went over to a chair by the stove.

XVI.

No man had more of a dread of the obvious than the Sheriff.  His position, he felt, was decidedly an unpleasant one.  Nevertheless, in the silence that followed the Girl’s discovery of his presence, he struggled to appear his old self.  He was by no means unconscious of the fact that he had omitted his usual cordial greeting to her, and he felt that she must be scrutinising him, feature by feature.  When, therefore, he shot a covert glance at her, it was with surprise that he saw an appealing look in her eyes.

“Oh, Jack, I want to thank you—­” she began, but stopped quickly, deterred by the hard expression that instantly spread itself over the Sheriff’s face.  Resentment, all the more bitter because he believed it to be groundless, followed hard on the heels of her words which he thought to be inspired solely by a delicate tactfulness.

“Oh, don’t thank me that he got away,” he said icily.  “It was the three aces and the pair you held—­”

This was the Girl’s opportunity; she seized it.

“About the three aces, I want to say that—­”

It was Rance’s turn to interrupt, which he did brutally.

“He’d better keep out of my country, that’s all.”

“Yes, yes.”

To the Girl, any reference to her lover was a stab.  Her face was pale with her terrible anxiety; notwithstanding, the contrast of her pallid cheeks and masses of golden hair gave her a beauty which Rance, as he met her eyes, found so extraordinarily tempting that he experienced a renewed fury at his utter helplessness.  At the point, however, when it would seem from his attitude that all his self-control was about to leave him, the Girl picked up the bell on the desk and rang it vigorously.