MacGonigal seemed to regard this personal inquiry anent his well-being as affording a safe means of escape from a dilemma. “I’m scairt about you, Derry,” he said at once, and there was no doubting the sincerity of the words.

“About me?”

“Yep. Guess you’d better hike back to Sacramento.”

“But why?”

“Marten ’ud like it.”

“Man, I’ve written to tell him I was on the way to Denver!”

“Then git a move on, an’ go thar.”

Power smiled, though not with his wonted geniality, for he was minded to be sarcastic. “Sorry if I should offend the boss by turning up in Bison,” he drawled; “but if I can’t hold this job down I’ll monkey around till I find another. If you should happen to see Marten this afternoon, tell him I’m at the ranch, and will show up in Main Street tomorrow P.M.”

He was actually turning on his heel when MacGonigal cried:

“Say, Derry, air you heeled?”

Power swung round again, astonishment writ large on his face. “Why, no,” he said. “I’m not likely to be carrying a gold brick to Dolores. Who’s going to hold me up?”

“Bar jokin’, I wish you’d vamoose. Dang me, come back tomorrer, ef you must!”

There! MacGonigal had said it! In a land where swearing is a science this Scoto-Hibernico-American had earned an enviable repute for the mildness of his expletives, and his “dang me!” was as noteworthy in Bison as its European equivalent in the mouth of a British archbishop. Power was immensely surprised by his bulky friend’s emphatic earnestness, and cudgeled his brains to suggest a reasonable explanation. Suddenly it occurred to him a second time that Bison was singularly empty of inhabitants that day. MacGonigal’s query with regard to a weapon was also significant, and he remembered that when he left the district there was pending a grave dispute between ranchers and squatters as to the inclosing of certain grazing lands on the way to the East and its markets.

“Are the boys wire-cutting today?” he asked, in the accents of real concern; for any such expedition would probably bring about a struggle which might not end till one or both of the opposing parties ran short of ammunition.

“Nit,” growled the other. “Why argy? You jest take my say-so, Derry, an’ skate.”

“Is the boss mixed up in this?”

“Yep.”

“Well, he can take care of himself as well as anyone I know. So long, Mac. See you later.”

“Ah, come off, Derry. You’ve got to have it; but don’t say I didn’t try to help. The crowd are up at Dolores. Marten’s gittin’ married, an’ that’s all there is to it. Now I guess you’ll feel mad with me for not tellin’ you sooner.”

Power’s face blanched under its healthy tan of sun and air; but his voice was markedly clear and controlled when he spoke, which, however, he did not do until some seconds after MacGonigal had made what was, for him, quite an oration.

“Why should Marten go to Dolores to get married?” he said at last.

The storekeeper humped his heavy shoulders, and conjured the cigar across his mouth again. He did not flinch under the sudden fire which blazed in Power’s eyes; nevertheless, he remained silent.

“Mac,” went on the younger man, still uttering each word deliberately, “do you mean that Marten is marrying Nancy Willard?”

“Yep.”

“And you’ve kept me here all this time! God in Heaven, Man, find me a horse!”

“It’s too late, Derry. They was wed three hours sence.”

“Too late for what? Get me a horse!”

“There’s not a nag left in Bison. An’ it’ll do you no sort of good ter shoot Marten.”

“Mac, you’re no fool. He sent me to Sacramento to have me out of the way, and you’ve seen through it right along.”

“Maybe. But old man Willard was dead broke. This dry spell put him slick under the harrow. Nancy married Marten ter save her father.”

“That’s a lie! They made her believe it, perhaps; but Willard could have won through as others have done. That scheming devil Marten got me side-tracked on purpose. He planned it, just as David put Uriah in the forefront of the battle. But, by God, he’s not a king, any more than I’m a Hittite! Nancy Willard is not for him, nor ever will be. Give me – but I know you won’t, and it doesn’t matter, anyway, because I’d rather tear him with my hands.”

An overpowering sense of wrong and outrage had Power in its grip now, and his naturally sallow skin had assumed an ivory whiteness that was dreadful to see. So rigid was his self-control that he gave no other sign of the passion that was convulsing him. Turning toward the door, he thrust his right hand to the side of the leather belt he wore; but withdrew it instantly, for he was a law-abiding citizen, and had obeyed in letter and spirit the recently enacted ordinance against the carrying of weapons. He would have gone without another word had not MacGonigal slipped from behind the counter with the deft and catlike ease of movement which some corpulent folk of both sexes seem to possess. Running lightly and stealthily on his toes, he caught Power’s arm before the latter was clear of the veranda which shaded the front of the store.

“Whar ’r you goin’, Derry?” he asked, with a note of keen solicitude in his gruff voice that came oddly in a man accustomed to the social amenities of a mining camp.

“Leave me alone, Mac. I must be alone!” Then Power bent a flaming glance on him. “You’ve told me the truth?” he added in a hoarse whisper.

“Sure thing. You must ha passed the minister between here an’ the depot.”

“He had been there – to marry them?”

“Yep.”

“And everyone is up at the ranch, drinking the health of Marten and his bride?”

“Guess that’s so.”

Power tried to shake off the detaining hand. “It’s a pity that I should be an uninvited guest, but it can’t be helped,” he said savagely. “You see, I was carrying out the millionaire’s orders – earning him more millions – and I ought to have taken longer over the job. And, Nancy too! What lie did they tell her about me? I hadn’t asked her to be my wife, because it wouldn’t have been fair; yet – but she knew! She knew! Let me go, Mac!”

MacGonigal clutched him more tightly. “Ah, say, Derry,” he cried thickly, “hev’ you forgot you’ve left me yer mother’s address in San Francisco? In case of accidents, you said. Well, am I ter write an’ tell her you killed a man on his weddin’ day, and was hanged for it?”

“For the Lord’s sake, don’t hold me, Mac!”

The storekeeper, with a wisdom born of much experience, took his hand off Power’s arm at once, but contrived to edge forward until he was almost facing his distraught friend.

“Now, look-a here!” he said slowly. “This air a mighty bad business; but you cahn’t mend it, an’ ef you go cavortin’ round in a red-eyed temper you’ll sure make it wuss. You’ve lost the gal – never mind how – an’ gittin’ a strangle hold on Marten won’t bring her back. Yer mother’s a heap more to you ner that gal – now.”

One wonders what hidden treasury of insight into the deeps of human nature MacGonigal was drawing on by thus bringing before the mind’s eye of an unhappy son the mother he loved. But there was no gainsaying the soundness and efficiency of his judgment. Only half comprehending his friendly counselor’s purpose, Power quivered like a high-spirited horse under the prick of a spur. He put his hands to his face, as if the gesture would close out forever the horrific vision which the memory of that gray-haired woman in San Francisco was beginning to dispel. For the first time in his young life he had felt the lust of slaying, and the instinct of the jungle thrilled through every nerve, till his nails clenched and his teeth bit in a spasm of sheer delirium.

MacGonigal, despite his present load of flesh, must have passed through the fiery furnace himself in other days; for he recognized the varying phases of the obsession against which Power was fighting.

Hence, he knew when to remain silent, and, again, he knew when to exorcise the demon, once and for all, by the spoken word. It was so still there on that sun-scorched plateau that the mellow whistle of an engine came full-throated from the distant railroad. The lame horse, bothered by the tight bandage which Power had contrived out of a girth, pawed uneasily in his stall. From the reduction works, half a mile away, came the grinding clatter of a mill chewing ore in its steel jaws. These familiar sounds served only to emphasize the brooding solitude of the place. Some imp of mischief seemed to whisper that every man who could be spared from his work, and every woman and child able to walk, was away making merry at the wedding of Hugh Marten and Nancy Willard.

The storekeeper must have heard that malicious prompting, and he combated it most valiantly.

“Guess you’d better come inside, Derry,” he said, with quiet sympathy. “You’re feelin’ mighty bad, an’ I allow you hain’t touched a squar’ meal sence the Lord knows when.”

He said the right thing by intuition. The mere fantasy of the implied belief that a quantity of cold meat and pickles, washed down by a pint of Milwaukee lager, would serve as an emollient for raw emotion, restored Power to his right mind. He placed a hand on MacGonigal’s shoulder, and the brown eyes which met his friend’s no longer glowered with frenzy.

“I’m all right now,” he said, in a dull, even voice; for this youngster of twenty-five owned an extra share of that faculty of self-restraint which is the birthright of every man and woman born and bred on the back-bone of North America. “I took it pretty hard at first, Mac; but I’m not one to cry over spilt milk. You know that, eh? No, I can’t eat or drink yet awhile. I took a lunch below here at the depot. Tell me this, will you? They – they’ll be leaving by train?”

“Yep. Special saloon kyar on the four-ten east. I reckon you saw it on a sidin’, but never suspicioned why it was thar.”

“East? New York and Europe, I suppose?”

“Guess that’s about the line.”

“Then I’ll show up here about half-past four. Till then I’ll fool round by myself. Don’t worry, Mac. I mean that, and no more.”

He walked a few yards; but was arrested by a cry:

“Not that-a way, Derry! Any other old trail but that!”

Then Power laughed; but his laughter was the wail of a soul in pain, for he had gone in the direction of the Dolores ranch. He waved a hand, and the gesture was one of much grace and distinction, because Power insensibly carried himself as a born leader of men.

“Just quit worrying, I tell you,” he said calmly. “I understand. The boys will escort them to that millionaire saloon. They’ll be a lively crowd, of course; but they won’t see me, never fear.”

Then he strode off, his spurs jingling in rhythm with each long, athletic pace. He headed straight for a narrow cleft in the hill at the back of the store, a cleft locally known as the Gulch, and beyond it, on another plateau sloping to the southeast, lay the Willard homestead.

MacGonigal watched the tall figure until it vanished in the upward curving of the path. Then he rolled the cigar between his heavy lips again until it was securely lodged in the opposite corner of his mouth; but the maneuver was wasted, – the cigar was out, – and such a thing had not happened in twenty years! To mark an unprecedented incident, he threw away an unconsumed half.

“He’s crazy ter have a last peep at Nancy,” he communed. “An’ they’d have made a bully fine pair, too, ef it hadn’t been fer that skunk Marten. Poor Derry! Mighty good job I stopped home, or he’d ha gone plumb to hell.”

Of course, the storekeeper was talking to himself; so he may not have said it, really. But he thought it, and, theologically, that is as bad. Moreover, he might have electrified Bison by his language that night were he gifted with second sight; for he had seen the last of the proud, self-contained yet light-hearted and generous-souled cavalier whom he had known and liked as “Derry” Power. They were fated to meet again many times, under conditions as varying as was ever recorded in a romance of real life; but MacGonigal had to find a place in his heart for a new man, because “Derry” Power was dead – had died there in the open doorway of the store – and a stranger named John Darien Power reigned in his stead.