The fierce eyes of Kate were on him and with all his soul he wanted to play the man, but liberty was sweet, sweeter than ever to Vic.

She seemed to give him up as he stood there with his heart, in his throat; she turned back to Barry.
"Dan!" she pleaded.
She had not touched him, but he made a vague gesture as though brushing away a restraining hand.

She cried: "If you come close to them--if, they start shooting--you might want to fight back--" "They shot before," he answered, "and I didn't fire once." "But the second time ?" To be sure, there would be danger in it, but as Barry himself had said, if the way was closed to him he could surrender to them, and they could not harm him.

Vic tried in vain to understand this overmastering terror in the girl, for she seemed more afraid of what Dan might do to the posse than what the posse might do to Dan.
"This ain't a day for fightin'," said Dan, and he waved towards the mountains.

It was one of those misty spring days when the sun raises a vapor from the earth and the clouds blow low around the upper peaks; every ravine was poured full of blue shadow, and even high up the slopes, where patches of snow had melted, grass glimmered, a tender green among the white.