CHAPTER XXXVII.
"TODO ES PERDO" It was not long after the departure of Bard that Sally Fortune awoke.
For a step had creaked on the floor, and she looked up to find Steve Nash standing in the centre of the room with the firelight gloomily about him; behind, blocking the door with his squat figure, stood Shorty Kilrain.
"Where's your side-kicker ?" asked Nash.

"Where's Bard ?" And looking across the room, she saw that the other bunk was empty.

She raised her arms quickly, as if to stifle a yawn, and sat up in the bunk, holding the blanket close about her shoulders.

The face she showed to Nash was calmly contemptuous.
"The bird seems to be flown, eh ?" she queried.
"Where is he ?" he repeated, and made a step nearer.
She knew at last that her power over him as a woman was gone; she caught the danger of his tone, saw it in the steadiness of the eyes he fixed upon her.

Behind was a great, vague feeling of loss, the old hollowness about the heart.