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"Kate!" called her father suddenly. "What's the matter, honey?"

With bowed head and a faltering step she was leaving the room. Buck caught old Joe by the arm and held him back as he would have followed.

"Let her be!" said Buck sharply. "Maybe she'll want to see you at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon, but until then she'll want to be alone. There'll be ghosts enough with her all the time. You c'n lay to that."

Joe Cumberland wiped his glistening forehead.

"There ain't nothin' we c'n do, Buck, but sit an' wait."

Buck drew a long breath.

"What devil gave Silent that idea?"

"Fear!"

"Jim Silent don't know what fear is!"

"Any one who's seen the yaller burn in Dan's eyes knows what fear is."

Buck winced.

Cumberland went on: "Every night Silent has been seein' them eyes that glow yaller in the dark. They lie in wait for him in every shadow. Between dark and dawn he dies a hundred deaths. He can't stand it no more. He's goin' to die. Somethin' tells him that. But he wants to die