The first ten days of the following time were the hardest; it was during that period that Scottie and the rest were most apt to return and make a backstroke at Dozier and Andrew. For Andrew knew well enough that this was the argument—the promise of a surprise attack—with which Scottie had lured his men away from the shack.

During that ten days, and later, he adopted a systematic plan of work. During the nights he paid two visits to the sick man. On one occasion he dressed the wound; on the next he did the cooking and put food and water beside the marshal, to last him through the day.

After that he went out and took up his post. As a rule he waited on the top of the hill in the clump of pines. From this position he commanded with his rifle the sweep of hillside all around the cabin. The greatest time of danger for Dozier was when Andrew had to scout through the adjacent hills for food—their supply of meat ran out on the fourth day.

But the ten days passed; and after that, in spite of the poor care he had received—or perhaps aided by the absolute quiet—the marshal's iron constitution asserted itself more and more strongly. He began to mend rapidly. Eventually he could sit up, and, when that time came, the great period of anxiety was over. For Dozier could sit with his rifle across his knees, or, leaning against the chair which Andrew had improvised, command a fairly good outlook.

Only once—it was at the close of the fourth week—did Andrew find suspicious signs in the vicinity of the cabin—the telltale trampling on a place where four horses had milled in an impatient circle. But no doubt the gang had thought caution to be the better part of hate. They remembered the rifle of Andrew and had gone on without making a sign. Afterward Andrew learned why they had not returned sooner. Three hours after they left the shack a posse had picked them up in the moonlight, and there had followed a forty-mile chase.

But all through the time until the marshal could actually stand and walk, and finally sit his saddle with little danger of injuring the wound, Andrew, knowing nothing of what took place outside, was ceaselessly on the watch. Literally, during all that period, he never closed his eyes for more than a few minutes of solid sleep. And, before the danger line had been crossed, he was worn to a shadow. When he turned his head the cords leaped out on his neck. His mouth had that look, at once savage and nervous, which goes always with the hunted man.

And it was not until he was himself convinced that Dozier could take care of himself that he wrapped himself in his blankets and fell into a twenty-four-hour sleep. He awoke finally with a start, out of a dream in which he had found himself, in imagination, wakened by Scottie stooping over him. He had reached for his revolver at his side, in the dream, and had found nothing. Now, waking, his hand was working nervously across the floor of the shack. That part of the dream was come true, but, instead of Scottie leaning over him, it was the marshal, who sat in his chair with his rifle across his knees. Andrew sat up. His weapons had been indeed removed, and the marshal was looking at him with beady eyes.

"Have you seen 'em?" asked Andrew. "Have the boys shown themselves?"

He started to get up, but the marshal's crisp voice cut in on him. "Sit down there."

There had been—was it possible to believe it?—a motion of the gun in the hands of the marshal to point this last remark.

"Partner," said Andrew, stunned, "what are you drivin' at?"

"I've been thinking," said Hal Dozier. "You sit tight till I tell you what about."

"It's just driftin' into my head, sort of misty," murmured Andrew, "that you've been thinkin' about double-crossin' me."

"Suppose," said the marshal, "I was to ride into Martindale with you in front of me. That'd make a pretty good picture, Andy. Allister dead, and you taken alive. Not to speak of ten thousand I dollars as a background. That would sort of round off my work. I could retire and live happy ever after, eh?"

Andrew peered into the grim face of the older man; there was not a flicker of a smile in it.

"Go on," he said, "but think twice, Hal. If I was you, I'd think ten times!"

The marshal met those terrible, blazing eyes without a quiver of his own.

"I began with thinking about that picture," he said. "Later on I had some other thoughts—about you. Andy, d'you see that you don't fit around here? You're neither a man-killer nor a law-abidin' citizen. You wouldn't fit in Martindale any more, and you certainly won't fit with any gang of crooks that ever wore guns. Look at the way you split with Allister's outfit! Same thing would happen again. So, as far as I can see, it doesn't make much difference whether I trot you into town and collect the ten thousand, or whether some of the crooks who hate you run you down—or some posse corners you one of these days and does its job. How do you see it?"

Andrew said nothing, but his face spoke for him.

"How d'you see the future yourself?" said the marshal. His voice changed suddenly: "Talk to me, Andy."

Andrew looked carefully at him; then he spoke.

"I'll tell you short and quick, Hal. I want action. That's all. I want something to keep my mind and my hands busy. Doing nothing is the thing I'm afraid of."

"I gather you're not very happy, Andy?"

Lanning smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile to see.

"I'm empty, Hal," he answered. "Does that answer you? The crooks are against me, the law is against me. Well, they'll work together to keep me busy. I don't want any man's help. I'm a bad man, Hal. I know it. I don't deny it. I don't ask any quarter."

It was rather a desperate speech—rather a boyish one. At any rate the marshal smiled, and a curious flush came in Andrew's face.

"Will you let me tell you a story, Andrew? It's a story about yourself."

He went on: "You were a kid in Martindale. Husky, good-natured, a little sleepy, with touchy nerves, not very confident in yourself. I've known other kids like you, but none just the same type.

"You weren't waked up. You see? The pinch was bound to come in a town where every man wore his gun. You were bound to face a show-down. There were equal chances. Either you'd back down or else you'd give the man a beating. If the first thing happened, you'd have been a coward the rest of your life. But the other thing was what happened, and it gave you a touch of the iron that a man needs in his blood. Iron dust, Andy, iron dust!

"You had bad luck, you think. You thought you'd killed a man; it made you think you were a born murderer. You began to look back to the old stories about the Lannings—a wild crew of men. You thought that blood was what was a-showing in you.

"Partly you were right, partly you were wrong. There was a new strength in you. You thought it was the strength of a desperado. Do you know what the change was? It was the change from boyhood to manhood. That was all—a sort of chemical change, Andy.

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