Suddenly he became conscious that his eyes no longer saw the smoke.  He stared hard to glimpse it, but it was gone.  And with a supreme effort he wrenched himself free from a sort of paralysis which was stealing away his senses.

Now the light in the cabin disappeared, and since the shades of night, for which he had been waiting, had fallen, he called to the impatient and wondering Castro, and together they went back to the trail.

But even as they crossed the gulch and reached the outskirts of the camp a great white moon rose from behind the Sierras.  To Castro, hidden now in the pines, it meant nothing so long as it did not interfere with his purpose.  As a matter of fact he was already listening intently to the bursts of song and shouts of revelry that came every now and then from the nearby saloon.  But his master, unaccountably under the spell of the moon’s mystery and romance, watched it until it shed its silvery and magic light upon the lone cabin on the top of Cloudy Mountain, which Fate had chosen for the decisive scene of his dramatic life.

V.

Inside The Polka, not a bit more, and not a bit less sardonic—­it was this imperturbability which made him so resistless to most people—­than he was prior to the banishment of The Sidney Duck, the Sheriff of Manzaneta County waited patiently until the returning puppets of his will had had time to compose themselves.  It took them merely the briefest of periods, but it served to increase visibly the long ash at the end of Rance’s cigar.  At length he shot a hawk-like glance at Sonora and proposed a little game of poker.

“This time, gentlemen—­” he said, with a significant pause and accent—­ “just for social recreation.  What do you say?”

“I’m your Injun!” acquiesced Sonora, rubbing his hands together gleefully at the prospect of winning from the Sheriff, whom he liked none too well.

“That’s me, too!” concurred Trinidad.

“Chips, then, Nick!” called out the Sheriff, quietly taking a seat at the table; while Sonora, bubbling over with spirits, hitched up his trousers in sailor fashion and executed an impromptu hornpipe, bellowing in his deep, base voice: 

   “I shipped aboard of a liner, boys—­”

“Renzo, boys, renzo,” finished Trinidad, falling in place at the table.

At this point the outside door was unexpectedly pushed open, inward, and the Deputy-Sheriff came into their midst.

“Ashby just rode in with his posse,” he announced huskily to his superior.

The Sheriff flashed a look of annoyance and inquired of the gaunt, hollow-cheeked, muscular Deputy whose beaver overcoat was thrown open so that his gun and powder-flask showed plainly in his belt: 

“Why, what’s he doing here?”

“He’s after Ramerrez,” answered the Deputy, eyeing him intently.

Rance received this information in silence and went on with his shuffling of the cards; presently, unconcernedly, he remarked: