Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/262

 menace of mastery for which the girl's mind could not find a word vehicle.

She wished never to meet this man again. She prayed earnestly she might meet him once, she with a rifle in her hands. So the pendulum of her impulses swung, coming never to a rest. She was alternately frightened and furiously angry when she discovered that whenever she thought of Zang Whistler, the wind-roughened features of the outlaw immediately faded and melted into the round, smiling face of this enemy. She could see again just the look of dancing mischief that had filled those eyes; she could feel the touch of his lips Zang Whistler, after a night's prowling through Two Moons without encountering the man he sought, found no recourse but to return to Teapot Spout. His further presence in the town might embarrass the sheriff. To ride haphazard out to the cattle ranges on a hit-or-miss search for Hilma and Original would be but to court sudden death at the hands of any chance rider. His useless right hand was a handicap not to be overlooked. Before he left town he spread word of Hilma's disappearance among a few,—Uncle Alf, Woolly Annie and half a dozen friends besides them. Their