He said good-by; he kissed her,
released her, and turned away. His tall figure blurred in her
sight, grew dim through dark, streaked vision, and then he
vanished.
Twilight fell around Withersteen House, and dusk and night.
Little Fay slept; but Jane lay with strained, aching eyes. She
heard the wind moaning in the cottonwoods and mice squeaking in
the walls. The night was interminably long, yet she prayed to
hold back the dawn. What would another day bring forth? The
blackness of her room seemed blacker for the sad, entering gray
of morning light. She heard the chirp of awakening birds, and
fancied she caught a faint clatter of hoofs. Then low, dull
distant, throbbed a heavy gunshot. She had expected it, was
waiting for it; nevertheless, an electric shock checked her
heart, froze the very living fiber of her bones. That vise-like
hold on her faculties apparently did not relax for a long time,
and it was a voice under her window that released
her.
"Jane!...Jane!" softly called Lassiter.
She answered somehow.
"It's all right. Venters got away. I thought mebbe you'd heard
that shot, en' I was worried some."
"What was it--who fired?"
"Well--some fool feller tried to stop Venters out there in the
sage--an' he only stopped lead!...I think it'll be all right. I
haven't seen or heard of any other fellers round. Venters'll go
through safe. An', Jane, I've got Bells saddled, an' I'm going to
trail Venters.
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