Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/132

124 of a fight between the sheepmen and cattlemen. I don't care to have some one come up here and find me murdered, too."

The girl seemed distressed. It was the first time since their meeting that she seemed to lack words. Then she looked up fearlessly.

"I wish I could tell you differently," she said. "A sheepwoman has no right to be honest, in these days. The Indian told you the truth. Dan was murdered, not for personal reasons, but because the cattlemen—a little, evil group of them—want to destroy this flock of sheep—just why I'll tell you later. And that's the chance you must take."

"It's a real chance?"

Again she flinched. "They seem to be willing to go to any lengths to beat us."

"But it's a chance worth taking," he said with a sudden lightness of heart. "I'll keep the job for a while at least."

He watched her face as he spoke, and he saw the light—as unmistakable as the dawn that he had seen come over the mountains—grow in her face. It was reward enough. The joy that he got out of the work itself was henceforth simply clear profit; for another motive—one that had just come into his life—justified beyond all question the expenditure of his time and the chance of death.

He didn't try to explain the matter to his own satisfaction. He only knew that he felt a great