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 what harm is done? He has been up and down the river for three weeks, and he has an army of men camped over by the bridge. I know that, because Mr. Smith rode in from there a few days ago.”

“What, Whispering Smith? Oh, if he is there I would not go for worlds!”

“Pray, why not?”

“Why, he is such an awful man!”

“That is absurd, Dicksie.”

Dicksie looked grave. “Marion, no man in this part of the country has a good word to say for Whispering Smith.”

“Perhaps you have forgotten, Dicksie, that you live in a very rough part of the country,” returned Marion coolly. “No man that he has ever hunted down would have anything pleasant to say about him; nor would the friends of such a man be likely to say a good word of him. There are many on the range, Dicksie, that have no respect for life or law or anything else, and they naturally hate a man like Whispering Smith”

“But, Marion, he killed”

“I know. He killed a man named Williams a few years ago, while you were at school—one of the worst men that ever infested this country. Williams Cache is named after that man; he made the most beautiful spot in all these mountains a 174