"What does this mean? Where are the others?" she demanded. "Allen and his men have gone back to Lazette," returned Dakota quietly. "This means"--he pointed to Langford--"that we're going to have a little talk--about things." Sheila rose. "I don't care to hear any talk; I am not interested." "You'll be interested in _my_ talk," said Dakota. Curiously, he seemed to be invested with a new character. Just now he was more like the man he had been the night she had met him the first time--before he had forced her to marry him--than he had been since. Only, she felt as she watched him standing quietly in the middle of the room, the recklessness which had marked his manner that other time seemed to have entirely disappeared, seemed to have been replaced by something else--determination. Beneath the drooping mustache Sheila saw the lines of his lips; they had always seemed hard to her, and now there were little curves at the corners which hinted at amusement--grim amusement. His eyes, too, were different; the mockery had departed from them. They were steady and unwavering, as before, and though they still baffled her, she was certain that she saw a slumbering devil in them--as though he possessed some mysterious knowledge and purposed to confound Sheila and her father with it, though in his own way and to suit his convenience. Yet behind it all there lurked a certain gravity--a cold deliberation that seemed to proclaim that he was in no mood to trifle and that he proposed to follow some plan and would brook no interference. Fascinated by the change in him Sheila resumed her seat on the edge of the bunk, watching him closely. He drew a chair over near the door, tilted it back and dropped into it, thus mutely announcing that he intended keeping the prisoners until he had delivered himself of that mysterious knowledge which seemed to be in his mind. Glancing furtively at her father, Sheila observed that he appeared to have formed some sort of a conclusion regarding Dakota's actions also, for he sat very erect on his chair, staring at the latter, an intense interest in his eyes. Sheila had become interested, too; she had forgotten her weariness. And yet Dakota's first words disappointed her--somehow they seemed irrelevant. "This isn't such a big world, after all, is it?" He addressed both Sheila and her father, though he looked at neither. His tone was quietly conversational, and when he received no answer to his remark he looked up with a quiet smile.