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98 largely and in general, leaving to her lieutenants all matters of detail. She had fancied that she was living life to the uttermost, that, though gloved, her hand was on its throat. And yet this morning she had been stirred vaguely by the mere merging of dawn into broad day, and now by the look in the eyes of two men, by the primal qualities in their voices. Swiftly the thought rushed upon her: These men put out no gloved hands to grip at the throat of life, but rather hands naked and hot and hard.

Both Hurley and Stanton, watching with frank interest, turned their eyes upon Embry. To Steele's sharp words there was but the one answer … if Joe Embry was the man that Hurley was or Stanton. Or Turk Wilson or Bill Rice. These two had risen, had come a little forward, their gaze, too, on Embry.

Beatrice, breathless, was for a moment held rigid and powerless by the new emotions which came to her from this new phase of life. One swift glance at the four faces of the men who watched, merely watched, told her that she had hopelessly failed to plumb the souls of these of her hirelings she thought she knew so well. They would stand by, just as they stood now, and watch death done, grave and hard-eyed and unnterfering; it was Steele's quarrel and Embry's, no other man's. They, to the last man of them, had utterly forgotten Beatrice Corliss. Not a tongue remembered to turn to the pale words: "There's a lady here."

Then abruptly she realized that they had not all stood thus an eternity as it had seemed, but the very brief time in which Joe Embry was actually springing