Jim turned. The rough cowboy’s eyes were wet—for the first time in many a year. “They—hope he won’t die, Mary, girl. Your father’s shot bad, but he ain’t dead. We think Black did it after he run from Gordon’s office. We found him on the corner.” Langford squared his broad shoulders—then put strong, protecting arms around Mary. Now was he her all. “Come, my darling, we will go to him together.” She pushed him from her violently. “I will go alone. Why should you come? He is mine. He is all I have—there is no one else. Why don’t you go? You are big and strong—can’t you make that man suffer for my father’s murder? Jim, take me to him.” She seized the cowboy’s arm, and they went out together, and on down the stairs. Langford stood still a moment, following them with his eyes. His face was white. He bent his head. Jim, looking back, saw him thus, the dull light from the hall-lamp falling upon the bent head and the yellow hair. When Langford raised his head, his face, though yet white, bore an expression of concentrated determination. He, too, strode quickly down the stairs. CHAPTER XXII THE OUTLAW’S LAST STAND In the morning the sheriff went to the island. He reported the place deserted. He made many other trips. Sometimes he took a deputy with him; more often he rode unaccompanied. Richard Gordon lay helpless in a burning fever, with Paul Langford in constant and untiring attendance upon him. George Williston was a sadly shattered man. “I met Black on the corner west of Gordon’s office,” he explained, when he could talk. “I had not been able to sleep, and had been walking to tire my nerves into quiet. I was coming back to the hotel when I heard Black’s shot and then Mary’s. I ran forward and met Black on the corner, running. He stopped, cried out, ‘You, too, damn you,’ and that’s the last I knew until the boys picked me up.” These were the most interested—Langford, Gordon, Williston. Had they been in the count, things might have been different. It is very probable a posse would have been formed for immediate pursuit. But others must do what had been better done had it not been for those shots in the dark. There was blood outside Gordon’s window; yet Black had not crawled home to die. He had not gone home at all,—at least, that is what the sheriff said. No one had seen the convicted man after his desperate and spectacular exit from the courtroom—no one at least but Louise, Mary, and her father. Mary’s shot had not killed him, but it had saved Richard Gordon’s life, which was a far better thing. It was impossible to track him out of town, for the cattle had trampled the snow in every direction.