Arnold was looking at her sharply. “That’s where you’re wrong, Kate,” he said decidedly, “never take chances on the human system. I’ve seen a man come to after being electrocuted. We’ll get busy right now—tomorrow. In the meantime, please remember that I haven’t seen you for many moons. Let’s talk of love, tonight.” There was a step at the door, and a dusty rider stood there. “Want to report,” he said, “that I’ve just come up the Pipe and I found tracks—brushed out—at the mouth in Blue Stone—there were two men on foot. No hoof-marks. They looked in behind the willows.” Kate Cathrew rose straight up to her feet. “Hell’s fire!” she said. CHAPTER XVIII THE FIGHTING LINE AT LAST Brand Fair haunted the Selwood ranch. He hung to the side of the unconscious man almost night and day. “What do you think, doctor?” he asked anxiously of the medical man brought in from Bement. “Frankly, I don’t think,” said that worthy, “these lapses, superinduced by concussion, are treacherous things. He may recover suddenly, or he may die without regaining consciousness. It’s a gamble.” But anxious as he was to know the secret locked in the unconscious brain of Price Selwood, Fair had not been idle. He and Bossick had been very busy. Many things had been done, a plan arranged, secret conclaves held at which grim and determined men sat their horses and pledged themselves to do a certain thing. Then Fair went to the cabin on Nameless, for the longing in his heart to see Nance Allison grew with every passing hour. He held her in his arms and kissed her forehead and her smooth cheeks, touched the shining coronet of her hair with reverent hands. “Sweetheart,” he whispered, after the age-old fashion of lovers, “there was never a woman like you! You are my light in dark places, my rain in the desert. Oh, Nance, what if I had never found you!” And the girl leaned on his heart in an ecstasy of love that was shot with sadness, holding fast to her trust with desperate hands. “It’s bound to come soon now,” he told her, “we are organized and ready—only waiting for Selwood, poor fellow, to regain his reason that he may tell us where to strike.” “There’ll be gun-play and—blood,” said Nance miserably, “and I pray God that you will not be taken. I—I couldn’t lose you, Brand, and live. I wouldn’t dare to live—for if they kill you—Oh, that black hatred which has stirred in me so long, is getting beyond my strength to hold it! I’ll go mad and turn killer, Brand if they kill you! I know it—I feel it here——” she laid eloquent hands on her heart—“and then my soul will go into the pit of damnation.”