Page:Frederick Faust--Free Range Lanning.djvu/108

104 know he's more devil than man when it comes to gun play, but we'll meet him together. Give me your hand!"

There was a riot in the brain of Andrew Lanning. The words of the outlaw had struck something in him that was like metal chiming on metal. Iron dust? That was it! The call of one blood to another, and he realized the truth of what Allister said. If he touched the hand of this man, there would be a bond between them which only death could break. In one blinding rush he sensed the strength and the faith of Allister.

But another voice was at his ear, and he saw the crystal purity of the eyes of Anne Withero, as she had stood for that moment in his arms in her room. It came over him with a chill like cold moonlight; it came over him with a chill like the bouquet of a fine wine.

"Do you fear me?" he had whispered.

"No."

"Will you remember me?"

"Forever!"

And with that ghost of a voice in his ear Andrew Lanning groaned to the man beside him: "Partner, I know you're nine-tenths man, and I thank you out of the bottom of my heart. But there's some one else has a claim to me—I don't belong to myself." There was a breathless pause. Anger contracted the face of Henry Allister; he nodded gravely.

"It's the girl you went back to see," he said.

"Yes."

"Well, then, go ahead and try to win through. Try to get out of the desert and get away among men. I wish you luck. But if you fail, remember what I've said. Now, or ten years from now, what I've said goes for you. Now roll over and sleep. Good-by, Lanning, or, rather, au revoir!"