Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/193

 pected. Still the rider's face was obscured by the mist. Only the pistol was plainly evident in his hand, and the coiled rope swinging at the saddle-horn.

There was a soundless burst of flame from the rider's pistol; another, another. Quick mounting, frantic riding away, that leaping, soundless flame reaching after the murderous scoundrels. And then peace; profound, silent, sweet.

The mysterious sentinel returned again to report to Barrett's numb body the contact of cold water on his face. And there was the sound of a woman crying, piteous and low.

Barrett opened his conscious eyes again upon the day. Not far away from where he lay stood the burning load of hay, a saddled horse still straining on the rope that ran from saddle-horn to end of the ironlooped wagon tongue. The cabin he could not see, but the sky was over him, the breath of life was in his throat, the sound of a woman's low, choked sobbing in his ears.

Alma Nearing bent over him, her weeping changed at sight of his revival into a glad, a boundlessly thankful, cry.

It was as though death had yielded him one flash of consciousness that he might impress upon the records of human gratitude, scroll so sacred and so scant, the credit he must have been uneasy in his grave to have left ungiven. Then the door was closed again, and Barrett lay as the dead.