He watched until she vanished through an open doorway; he heard the door slam, and caught the sound of bars being hurriedly dropped into place. And after that he stood for a time watching the house. No light came from within, and no other sound. He frowned slightly, drawing a mental picture of the girl inside, yielding to the terror that had seized her. Then after a while he walked down along the corral fence until he came to another building--a bunkhouse. And for a long time he stood in the doorway of the building, watching the ranchhouse, afflicted with grim sympathy. "It ain't so damn' cheerful, at that," he mused. "I reckon she thinks she's landed into trouble with both feet--with her dad cashin' in like he did, an' Deveny after her. It sure must be pretty hard to consider all them things. An' on top of that I mosey along, with a reputation as a no-good son-of-a-gun, an' scare the wits out of her with my homely mug. An' I can't tell her why she hadn't ought to be scared. I call that mighty mean." CHAPTER X ON GUARD The man whose soul held no love of the poetic sat for two or three hours on the threshold of the bunkhouse door, his gaze on the ranchhouse. He was considering his "reputation," and he had reached the conclusion that Barbara Morgan had reason to fear him--if rumor's tongues had related to her all of the crimes that had been attributed to him. And he knew she must have heard a great many tales about him, for rumor is a tireless worker. And for the first time in his life Harlan regretted that he had permitted rumor to weave her fabric of lies. For not one of the stories that luridly portrayed him in the rôle of a ruthless killer and outlaw was true. It was easy enough for him to understand how he had gained that reputation. He grinned mirthlessly now, as he mentally reviewed a past which _had_ been rather like the record of a professional man-killer. And yet, reviewing his past--from the day about five years ago, when he had shot a Taos bully who had drawn a gun on him with murderous intent, until today, when he had sent Laskar to his death--he could not remember one shooting affray for which he could be blamed. As a matter of fact, he had--by the courts in some instances, and by witnesses in others, where there were no courts--been held blameless. There had been men who had seen Harlan draw his weapons with deadly intent--men who insisted that the man's purpose was plain, to goad an enemy to draw a weapon, permitting him partially to draw it, and then to depend upon his superior swiftness and unerring aim. And this theory of Harlan's character had gone abroad.