Illogically enough it swept over her that it was she herself, Lynette, whom the man was insulting, and her finger trembled so upon the trigger that all unknowing Jim Taggart stood for the instant close upon the verge of the great final blackness. But, steadying herself, she managed to say: "Babe Deveril told you that? That Bruce Standing had put a chain about me? How did he know? That was after he had gone!" "But," muttered Taggart harshly, "he did not go so fast! He went up over a ridge and he stopped and rested, and in the dark he came back a bit and he hid and saw! Anyway, it's the truth, ain't it? And I know? So he must have come back to see!" That thought became on the instant the only thought, one to rise up and obstruct all others. Deveril had seen; he had lingered, hidden in the forest land; he had watched her humiliation; he had known that Bruce Standing, though armed, was a man sorely wounded ... and he had not come to her then! "Where is he?" she demanded swiftly. "When did you see him? Where has he gone?" "He came just as Standing, damn him, had jumped us to-night! All unawares Standing took us ... when we were busy with other things. He had the drop on us and he made us let the Mexico breed go. Deveril was watching but he didn't have a gun and he couldn't step up and take a hand, knowing his cousin for a dead shot and a man who'd rather kill than not." "But now," demanded Lynette. "_Now!_ Where is he?" "He's a wised-up kid and I'm with him, tooth and toenail! He came up then and he said his say ... and I let him go! And he told me to look out for you and he hit the trail, dog-tired as he was, after Mexicali Joe! If there's gold to be had, why Babe Deveril means to be in on it. And me, so do I! And you, if you're on." Underfoot, all this time, Lynette felt Bruce Standing's rifle.... There are times in life for methodical thought, other times for swift decisions, bred of impulse and instinctive urge.... She lived again through a certain pregnant crisis, saw in mind the whole scene as though some master artist with sweeping, bold brush had created the perfect vision anew for her, the struggle which had been hers and Babe Deveril's and Bruce Standing's, when Standing, with the sun glowing red over his head, had come rushing down on them by their camp-fire. She saw his rifle ... the one she now felt underfoot!... go swirling over a pine top as he hurled from him any such advantage in fair fight as it spelled; again she watched the fight ... she saw Babe Deveril go up over the ridge; she saw herself, striking in fury against Standing's arm, beating the rifle down.... "Well?" It was Taggart who spoke the brief word now. "Which is it? Jail for you ... or a good long spell in the pen for him?" ... And Babe Deveril had come this close ... she had proof of that in Taggart's knowledge of the chain! ... and had gone on, following the golden lure of Mexicali Joe's trail! "Well?" said Taggart.