He followed out into the night to find that Dextry had disappeared, evidently wishing to avoid argument.  Roy had seen signs of unrest beneath the prospector’s restraint during the past few days, and indications of a fierce hunger to vent his spleen on the men who had robbed him of his most sacred rights.  He was of an intolerant, vindictive nature that would go to any length for vengeance.  Retribution was part of his creed.

On his way home, the young man looked at his watch, to find that he had but an hour to determine his course.  Instinct prompted him to join his friends and to even the score with the men who had injured him so bitterly, for, measured by standards of the frontier, they were pirates with their lives forfeit.  Yet, he could not countenance this step.  If only the Vigilantes would be content with making an example—­but he knew they would not.  The blood hunger of a mob is easy to whet and hard to hold.  McNamara would resist, as would Voorhees and the district-attorney, then there would be bloodshed, riot, chaos.  The soldiers would be called out and martial law declared, the streets would become skirmish-grounds.  The Vigilantes would rout them without question, for every citizen of the North would rally to their aid, and such men could not be stopped.  The Judge would go down with the rest of the ring, and what would happen to—­her?

He took down his Winchester, oiled and cleaned it, then buckled on a belt of cartridges.  Still he wrestled with himself.  He felt that he was being ground between his loyalty to the Vigilantes and his own conscience.  The girl was one of the gang, he reasoned—­she had schemed with them to betray him through his love, and she was pledged to the one man in the world whom he hated with fanatical fury.  Why should he think of her in this hour?  Six months back he would have looked with jealous eyes upon the right to lead the Vigilantes, but this change that had mastered him—­what was it?  Not cowardice, nor caution.  No.  Yet, being intangible, it was none the less marked, as his friends had shown him an hour since.

He slipped out into the night.  The mob might do as it pleased elsewhere, but no man should enter her house.  He found a light shining from her parlor window, and, noting the shade up a few inches, stole close.  Peering through, he discovered Struve and Helen talking.  He slunk back into the shadows and remained hidden for a considerable time after the lawyer left, for the dancers were returning from the hotel and passed close by.  When the last group had chattered away down the street, he returned to the front of the house and, mounting the steps, knocked sharply.  As Helen appeared at the door, he stepped inside and closed it after him.

The girl’s hair lay upon her neck and shoulders in tumbled brown masses, while her breast heaved tumultuously at the sudden, grim sight of him.  She stepped back against the wall, her wondrous, deep, gray eyes wide and troubled, the blush of modesty struggling with the pallor of dismay.