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The Aryan
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formed in his brain — pictures that brought him unspeakable agony. He saw a gentle, frail old woman, dying, her last thoughts of the boy who was coming back to her. He saw his distant relative, Jake Cairns, standing where he should have been — by his mother's bedside.
"She might not have died if I had been there," he whispered.
And then came the ghastly picture of himself as he had been for the last month, flinging about him the gold that should have been his mother's.' Two things had wrought his destruction : drink and women. Women ! The word echoed through his brain like an evil chord. Women ! How he hated them ! They who had fawned upon him only that they might fleece him. Chiefest among them had been the Firefly, the woman with the baby stare. And he had bought their favor with his mother's monev
The broken curse that welled up in his throat gave way to a low-choked snarl, a snarl that sounded the knell of
the Steve Denton that had been. There was born in him a relentless hate for womenkind. Soft, clinging things of evil he pronounced them now. He would deal with them as they deserved to be dealt with. They had taken toll of his heart, and he was resolved that now they must pay.
An hour afterward, Steve's pony was at the door of the dance hall. He dismounted and strode into the room. Unnoticed by the crowd at the gaming tables, he made his way to a corner where Trixie sat.
Her baby stare fell on him, and amusement and scorn were written on her face.
"You back again?" she drawled. "Did you stick up somebody for his wad?"
"Xothing like it," he answered. "But I've still got my pony, and I've borrowed enough provisions to last me to Devil's Hole."
"Coin' to hit the trail again, hey?"
"Yes, but I'm not going alone. Listen !" His dull brown eyes glowred with
"Don't you want to put up a little stake for the Firefly?"