step in the direction he had come. In a few moments he returned and
stood before her.
"I've sent away my deputy--the man who brought me here, the fool who
thought you were Nellie. He knows now he made a mistake. But who it was
he mistook for Nellie he does not know, nor shall ever know, nor shall
any living being know, other than myself. And when I leave the wood
to-day I shall know it no longer. You are safe here as far as I am
concerned, but I cannot screen you from others prying. Let Low take you
away from here as soon as he can."
"Let him take me away? Ah, yes. For what?"
"To save you," said Dunn. "Look here, Teresa! Without knowing it, you
lifted me out of hell just now, and because of the wrong I might have
done her--for HER sake, I spare you and shirk my duty."
"For her sake!" gasped the woman--"for her sake! Oh, yes! Go on."
"Well," said Dunn gloomily, "I reckon perhaps you'd as lieve left me in
hell, for all the love you bear me. And may be you've grudge enough agin
me still to wish I'd found her and him together."
"You think so?" she said, turning her head away.
"There, d--n it! I didn't mean to make you cry. May be you wouldn't,
then. Only tell that fellow to take you out of this, and not run away
the next time he sees a man coming."
"He didn't run," said Teresa, with flashing eyes. "I--I--I sent him
away," she stammered. Then, suddenly turning with fury upon him, she
broke out, "Run! Run from you! Ha, ha! You said just now I'd a grudge
against you. Well, listen, Jim Dunn. I'd only to bring you in range of
that young man's rifle, and you'd have dropped in your tracks like--"
"Like that bar, the other night," said Dunn, with a short laugh. "So
THAT was your little game?" He checked his laugh suddenly--a cloud
passed over his face. "Look here, Teresa," he said, with an assumption
of carelessness that was as transparent as it was utterly incompatible
with his frank, open selfishness. "What became of that bar? The
skin--eh? That was worth something?"
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