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 prized than fine gold—in my judgment—so I rode after them.”

Marion put her hand for a moment on his coat sleeve; he looked at Dicksie with another laugh and spoke to her because he dared not look toward Marion. “Going back to-night, do you say? You never are.”

Dicksie answered quite in earnest: “Oh, but we are. We must!”

“Why did you come, then? It’s taken half the night to get here, and will take a night and a half at least to get back.”

“We came to ask Mr. McCloud for some grain-sacks—you know, they have nothing to work with at the ranch,” said Marion; “and he said we might have some and we are to send for them in the morning.”

“I see. But we may as well talk plainly.” Smith looked at Dicksie. “You are as brave and as game as a girl can be, I know, or you couldn’t have done this. Sacks full of sand, with the boys at the ranch to handle them, would do no more good to-morrow at the bend than bladders. The river is flowing into Squaw Lake above there now. A hundred men that know the game might check things yet if they’re there by daylight. Nobody else, and nothing else on God’s earth, can.”

There was silence before the fire. McCloud 191