Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/191



he man had slipped to the cabin, his feet making no sound on the soft pine-straw carpet and leaf mold on the slope. The door stood open and he peered inside. The last rays of the dying fire threw a fitful illumination across the bunk where the girl lay rolled in her blanket. She was alone and he stepped inside.

At the first footfall she opened her eyes, thinking that for some reason Moran had come to waken her. It might be that Dad Kinney had come at last.

Then she saw that it was neither of these. The man wore western apparel which was so new as to seem out of place. The broad brim of his hat was stiff and straight, announcing only a few days of wear. Unversed as she was in such matters she still knew that this was an eastern man garbed out in new regalia which he deemed suitable for the west. The hat shaded his face but his presence in the cabin was like a contagion of evil and she knew him—and screamed.