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They were in the middle of the stream now. Byrne's arms already had commenced

to tighten upon the girl. With a sudden tug he strove to pull her face down to his;

but she put both hands upon his shoulders and held his lips at arms' length. And

her wide eyes looked full into the glowing gray ones of the mucker. And each saw

in the other's something that held their looks for a full minute.

Barbara saw what she had feared, but she saw too something else that gave her a

quick, pulsing hope--a look of honest love, or could she be mistaken? And the

mucker saw the true eyes of the woman he loved without knowing that he loved

her, and he saw the plea for pity and protection in them.

Don't," whispered the girl. "Please don't, you frighten me."

A week ago Billy Byrne would have laughed at such a plea. Doubtless, too, he

would have struck the girl in the face for her resistance. He did neither now,

which spoke volumes for the change that was taking place within him, but

neither did he relax his hold upon her, or take his burning eyes from her

frightened ones.

Thus he strode through the turbulent, shallow river to clamber up the bank onto

the island. In his soul the battle still raged, but he had by no means relinquished

his intention to have his way with the girl. Fear, numb, freezing fear, was in the

girl's eyes now. The mucker read it there as plain as print, and had she not said

that she was frightened? That was what he had wanted to accomplish back there

upon the Halfmoon--to frighten her. He would have enjoyed the sight, but he had

not been able to accomplish the thing. Now she not only showed that she was

frightened--she had admitted it, and it gave the mucker no pleasure--on the

contrary it made him unaccountably uncomfortable.

And then came the last straw--tears welled to those lovely eyes. A choking sob

wracked the girl's frame--"And just when I was learning to trust you so!" she

cried.

They had reached the top of the bank, now, and the man, still holding her in his

arms, stood upon a mat of jungle grass beneath a great tree. Slowly he lowered

her to her feet. The madness of desire still gripped him; but now there was

another force at work combating the evil that had predominated before.

Theriere's words came back to him: "Good-bye, Byrne; take good care of Miss

Harding," and his admission to the Frenchman during that last conversation with

the dying man: "--a week ago I guess I was a coward. Dere seems to be more'n

one kind o' nerve--I'm just a-learnin' of the right kind, I guess."

112

The Mucker