Galloway's return brought to Roderick Norton a fresh vigilance, to
Virginia a sleepless anxiety, to Florence Engle unrest, uncertainty,
very nearly pure panic. During the first few days of his absence she
had allowed herself the romantic joy of floating unchecked upon the
tide of a girlish fancy, dreaming dreams after the approved fashion
which is youth's, dancing lightly upon foamy crests, seeing only blue
water and no rocks under her. Then, with the potency of the man's
character removed with the removal of his physical being, she grew to
see the shoals and to draw back from them, shuddering somewhat
pleasurably. Now that he was again in San Juan and that her eyes had
been held by his in the first meeting upon the street, her heart
fluttered, her vision clouded, she wondered what she would do.
There was to be no lost action in Galloway's campaign now. Within half
a dozen hours of his arrival there was a gathering of various of his
henchmen at the Casa Blanca. Just what passed was not to be known; it
was significant, however, that among those who had come to his call
were the Mexican, del Rio, Antone, Kid Rickard, and a handful of the
other most restless spirits of the county. Norton accepted the act in
all that it implied to his suspicions and sent out word to Cutter,
Brocky Lane, and those of his own and Brocky's cowboys whom he counted
on.
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