"
Chino was already half an hour gone by the trail, and the Reno Kid was a
desperado of the deadliest breed known to the West. How he came to turn
up here there was no time to inquire. He was on hand, that was the
point; and Reno Kid always "shot to kill." This would be no mere
hold-up; it would be murder.
Just then, as Lockwood snatched open a certain drawer of his desk where
he kept his revolver, he heard from down the road, in the direction of
Chino's cabin, Felice's voice singing:
"To the war I must go,
To fight for my country and you, dear."
Lockwood stopped short, his arm at full stretch, still gripping tight
the revolver that he had half pulled from the drawer--stopped short and
listened.
The solution of everything had come.
He saw it in a flash. The knife hung poised over the knot--even at that
moment was falling. Nothing was asked of him--nothing but inertia.
For an instant, alone there in that isolated mining-camp, high above the
world, lost and forgotten in the gloom of the canons and redwoods,
Lockwood heard the crisis of his life come crashing through the air upon
him like the onslaught of a whirlwind. For an instant, and no more, he
considered. Then he cried aloud:
"No, no; I can't, I _can't_--not this way!" And with the words he threw
the belt of the revolver about his hips and limped and scampered from
the room, drawing the buckle close.
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