Lance's first movements were inconsistent with his assumed sex. He
picked up his draggled skirt and drew a bowie-knife from his boot. From
his bosom he took a revolver, turning the chambers noiselessly as he
felt the caps. He then crept toward the cabin softly and gained the
shed. It was quite dark but for a pencil of light piercing a crack of
the rude, ill-fitting door that opened on the sitting-room. A single
voice not unfamiliar to him, raised in half-brutal triumph, greeted his
ears. A name was mentioned--his own! His angry hand was on the latch.
One moment more and he would have burst the door, but in that instant
another name was uttered--a name that dropped his hand from the latch
and the blood from his cheeks. He staggered backward, passed his hand
swiftly across his forehead, recovered himself with a gesture of
mingled rage and despair, and, sinking on his knees beside the door,
pressed his hot temples against the crack.
"Do I know Lance Harriott?" said the voice. "Do I know the d--d
ruffian? Didn't I hunt him a year ago into the brush three miles from
the Crossing? Didn't we lose sight of him the very day he turned up yer
at this ranch, and got smuggled over into Monterey? Ain't it the same
man as killed Arkansaw Bob--Bob Ridley--the name he went by in Sonora?
And who was Bob Ridley, eh? Who? Why, you d--d old fool, it was Bob
Fairley--YOUR SON!"
The old man's voice rose querulous and indistinct.
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