She looked at it dubiously and laid it gingerly aside.  “You don’t mean to say you go about with such things openly?” she said querulously.

“Yes; one mustn’t lose a chance of trade, you know,” he resumed with a smile.

“And you haven’t found this journey very profitable,” she said dryly.  “You certainly are devoted to your business!” After a pause, discontentedly:  “It’s quite night already—­we can’t sit here in the dark.”

“We can take one of the coach lamps inside; they’re still there.  I’ve been thinking the matter over, and I reckon if we leave one lighted outside the coach it may guide your friends back.”  He had considered it, and believed that the audacity of the act, coupled with the knowledge the Indians must have of the presence of the soldiers in the vicinity, would deter rather than invite their approach.

She brightened considerably with the coach lamp which he lit and brought inside.  By its light she watched him curiously.  His face was slightly flushed and his eyes very bright and keen looking.  Man killing, except with old professional hands, has the disadvantage of affecting the circulation.

But Miss Cantire had noticed that the flask smelt of whiskey.  The poor man had probably fortified himself from the fatigues of the day.

“I suppose you are getting bored by this delay,” she said tentatively.

“Not at all,” he replied.  “Would you like to play cards?  I’ve got a pack in my pocket.  We can use the middle seat as a table, and hang the lantern by the window strap.”

She assented languidly from the back seat; he was on the front seat, with the middle seat for a table between them.  First Mr. Boyle showed her some tricks with the cards and kindled her momentary and flashing interest in a mysteriously evoked but evanescent knave.  Then they played euchre, at which Miss Cantire cheated adorably, and Mr. Boyle lost game after game shamelessly.  Then once or twice Miss Cantire was fain to put her cards to her mouth to conceal an apologetic yawn, and her blue-veined eyelids grew heavy.  Whereupon Mr. Boyle suggested that she should make herself comfortable in the corner of the coach with as many cushions as she liked and the despised shawl, while he took the night air in a prowl around the coach and a lookout for the returning party.  Doing so, he was delighted, after a turn or two, to find her asleep, and so returned contentedly to his sentry round.

He was some distance from the coach when a low moaning sound in the thicket presently increased until it rose and fell in a prolonged howl that was repeated from the darkened plains beyond.  He recognized the voice of wolves; he instinctively felt the sickening cause of it.  They had scented the dead bodies, and he now regretted that he had left his own victim so near the coach.  He was hastening thither when a cry, this time human and more terrifying, came from the coach.  He turned towards it as its door flew open and Miss Cantire came rushing toward him.  Her face was colorless, her eyes wild with fear, and her tall, slim figure trembled convulsively as she frantically caught at the lapels of his coat, as if to hide herself within its folds, and gasped breathlessly,—­