She was neither faint-hearted nor hysterical. The grind
of fending for herself in a city had taught her the necessity of
self-control. But she was worn out, unstrung, and there is a limit to
a woman's endurance.
As on the previous night, she wakened often and glanced over to the
fire. Roaring Bill kept his accustomed position, flat in the glow.
She had no fear of him now. But he was something of an enigma. She
had few illusions about men in general. She had encountered a good
many of them in one way and another since reaching the age when she
coiled her hair on top of her head. And she could not recall one--not
even Jack Barrow--with whom she would have felt at ease in a similar
situation. She knew that there was a something about her that drew
men. If the presence of her had any such effect on Bill Wagstaff, he
painstakingly concealed it.
And she was duly grateful for that. She had not believed it a
characteristic of his type--the virile, intensely masculine type of
man. But she had not once found him looking at her with the same
expression in his eyes that she had seen once over Jim Briggs' dining
table.
Night passed, and dawn ushered in a clearing sky.
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