Seconds passed without a word. The gentle Nan no longer looked out of the brown eyes. They were hot, resentful. Nor would any one have recognized in the anxious-eyed woman before her the beautiful creature who had first stirred Jeffrey Masters out of his years of celibate thought. Without a word Nan turned back to the parlor. When she reappeared she was buckling a revolver belt about her slim waist. The two heavy holsters it supported were almost incongruous on so slight a figure. Elvine watched her. The girl's deliberation was in deep contrast to her own emotions. Then, too, the sympathy which had fled from Nan's brown eyes left them full of hard resolve. "You--are not going?" Elvine said, pointing at the weapons. Nan's surprise was genuine. "Jeff's in danger." "But you--a woman? You can't help. You might even----" "Jeff's in danger." Nan repeated the words with an emphasis there could be no mistaking. And as the final syllable escaped her pretty lips became firmly compressed. Elvine regarded her for a silent moment or two. A strange new sensation was stirring within her. Nan's attitude had brought it into being. Her earlier emotions receded before this new feeling. And, strangely enough, she remembered some words her mother had once spoken to her. It was at a time before she had engaged herself to her husband. "But Jeff--is nothing to you," she said abruptly. There was a new ring in the voice in which she spoke. "Is he?" Nan's eyes looked straight into the wife's. There was no smile in them. There was no emotion lying behind them that Elvine could read. They were steady, unflinching. That was all. Sounds came up from the ranch buildings. Voices reached them plainly. And among them Bud's dominating tones were raised above all. Nan's eyes were drawn in the direction, but her gaze only encountered the moonless night. "What is he--to you?" Elvine's demand was strident. She was roused from her sense of her own sufferings, her own misery. The newly awakened emotion had leaped to proportions which threatened to overwhelm all others. Nan's eyes came back to her face. There was something almost reckless in their regard. There was even a suggestion of derision in them, a suggestion of triumph. But it was not the triumph over a rival. It was the triumph of one who realizes her conquest over self.