Chance remarks of hers ... this one above all others ... rankled. She seemed so confident that Babe Deveril would come again, that he would carry in his breast the memory of sweet hours with her, that he would never rest until he, with her pleading eyes tender upon his, could rescue her from the bondage which Bruce Standing had set upon her! So it came about that nightly, and all night long, Bruce Standing dreamed of Babe Deveril and of battling with him and of beating him finally into such definite defeat as had not resulted from that other fierce struggle before her widening eyes. Another day went by and another, with Bruce Standing obsessed, knowing himself for a man who yearned with all his soul for one thing and one thing only, a mere slip of a gray-eyed girl who made madness in his pulses. He had his moods of fierceness; on their heels came those other moods of tenderness. More than once he came toward her, striding through the woods, his mind made up to set her free, asking only her happiness. And then he saw her; and in his heated fancies he saw Babe Deveril; and he named Deveril a man of slight manhood and swore by his own manhood that never would he show so lax and flabby a hand as to let this priceless girl, drop into the graceful, careless hand of any Babe Deveril who ever lived. "He'd never know how to love her as I do!" That ancient cry of all true lovers! But all the while there bit into him doubtings, fears, those manifold darts flung from love's alter ego, jealousy. He stood ready to give this girl full-handedly everything; from her he craved with that direst of all cravings, everything.... And when he could no longer hold back the tumult within him and demanded: "What of this Baby Devil?" putting a sneer into his voice, always she cried out warmly: "A true friend and a gentleman!" All unexpected by both of them, the less by him than her, Billy Winch, Timber-Wolf's one-legged retainer, rode full tilt into camp. They were lunching; they sat under a tree in the noonday shadow like two at picnic. He had been saying: "We're running short of rations." Then it was that Billy Winch, anxiously spurring a big roan saddle-horse, rode down upon them and, seeing them, began waving his hat high over his head in sweeping, joyous circles and shouting: "So you're still alive! That's something!" "You fool! Who told you to come here!" Standing leaped to his feet; he was hot with anger. "I knew where to find you, Timber!" cried Billy Winch gleefully. "Unless, a fair bet, the devil had claimed you and taken you down under, I knew I'd find you here!... How's the sick wing? Been usin' my salve? Night and morning, keepin' it clean and...." Billy Winch, headlong, stopping his horse with a sudden pluck of the reins when the gaunt roan had come near setting his four flickering hoofs in their midday fire, chose to ignore the fact that the Timber-Wolf was not alone.