For a moment there was inaction; then the assembly broke into motion.  No thought was there now of retaliation or revenge; only, as at a sudden conflagration or a wreck, of individual safety and escape.  The hallway was cleared as if by magic.  Within the room the men and women jostled each other in the darkness, or jammed imprecating in the narrow doorway.  In a few seconds Ben was alone.  Calmly he thrust the empty revolvers back into his pockets and followed leisurely into the hall.  There the dim light revealed an empty space; but here and there a lock turned gratingly, and from more than one room as he passed came the sound of furniture being hastily drawn forward as a barricade.

No human being ever knew what occurred behind the locked door of Ben Blair’s room at the hotel that night.  Those hours were buried as deep as what took place in his mind during the months intervening between the coming of Florence Baker to the city and his own decision to follow her.  By nature a solitary, he fought his battles alone and in silence.  That he never once touched his bed, the hotel maids could have testified the next morning.  As to the decision that followed those sleepless hours, his own action gave a clue.  He had left a call for an early train West, and at daylight a tap sounded on his door, while a voice announced the time.

“Yes,” answered the guest; but he did not stir.

In a few minutes the tap was repeated more insistently.  “You’ve only time to make your train if you hurry,” warned the voice.

For a moment Blair did not answer.  Then he said:  “I have decided not to go.”

CHAPTER XXV

OF WHAT AVAIL?

It was late next morning, almost noon in fact, when Florence Baker awoke; and even then she did not at once rise.  A physical listlessness, very unusual to her, lay upon her like a weight.  A year ago, by this time of day, she would have been ravenously hungry; but now she had a feeling that she could not have taken a mouthful of food had her life depended on it.  The room, although it faced the west and was well ventilated, seemed hot and depressing.  A breeze stirred the lace curtains at the window, but it was heated by the blocks of city pavements over which it had come.  The girl involuntarily compared this awakening with that of a former life in what now seemed to her the very long ago.  She remembered the light morning wind of the prairies, which, always fresh with the coolness of dew and of growing things, had drifted in at the tiny windows of the Baker ranch-house.  She recalled the sweet scent of the buffalo grass with a vague sense of depression and irrevocable loss.

She turned restlessly beneath the covers, and in doing so her face came in contact with the moistened surface of her pillow.  Propping herself up on her elbow, she looked curiously at the tell-tale bit of linen.  Obviously, she had been crying in her sleep; and for this there must have been a reason.  Until that moment she had not thought of the previous night; but now the sudden recollection overwhelmed her.  She was only a girl-woman—­a child of nature, incapable of repression.  Two great tears gathered in her soft brown eyes; with instinctive desire of concealment the fluffy head dropped to the pillow, and the sobs broke out afresh.