For a long time the girl rested on her elbow, listening; but no further sounds came from the room into which Deveny had gone. At last, trembling, her face white with fear, the girl got up and stole noiselessly to the door. A light bolt was the door's only fastening; and the girl stood long, with a hand upon it, considering its frailty. How easy it would be for a big man like Deveny to force the door. One shove of his giant shoulder and the bolt would give. Stealthily, noiselessly, straining with every ounce of her strength, she managed to lift the cheap bureau and carry it to the door, placing it against the latter, barricading it. Not satisfied, she dragged the bed over against the bureau. Even when that had been accomplished, she was not satisfied and during the greater part of the night she sat on the edge of the bed, listening and watching the door. For in the days that had fled Deveny had said certain things to her that she had not repeated to her father; he had looked at her with a significance that no man could have understood; and there had been a gleam in his eyes at these times which had convinced her that behind the bland smoothness of him--back of the suave politeness of his manner--was a primitive animalism. His suave politeness was a velvet veil of character behind which he masked the slavering fangs of the beast he really was. CHAPTER IV HIS SHADOW BEFORE At ten o'clock the following morning, in a rear room of "Balleau's First Chance" saloon--which was directly across the street from the Lamo Eating-House--Luke Deveny and two other men were sitting at a card-table with bottle and glasses between them. A window in the eastern side of the room gave the men an unobstructed view of the desert, and for half an hour, as they talked and drank, they looked out through the window. A tall, muscular man with a slightly hooked nose, keen blue eyes with a cold glint in them, black hair, and an equally black mustache which revealed a firm-lipped mouth with curves at the corners that hinted of cynicism, and, perhaps cruelty, was sitting at the table so that he faced the window. His smile, as he again glanced out of the window, roved to Deveny--who sat at his right. "One man--an' a led horse," he said shortly. "Looks like Laskar." Deveny--big, smooth-shaven--with black, glowing, attractive eyes that held a glint quite as hard as that which shone in the eyes of the speaker, looked long out of the window at a moving dot on the desert, which seemed to be traveling toward them. Deveny had looked before; but now he saw two dots where at other times he had seen only one. His lips held a slight pout as he glanced at the speaker. "You're right, Rogers," he said; "there's only one. The old fool must have put up a fight."