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 there to keep your cousin’s sympathy with Sinclair, and to lure your cousin his way. And Karg will try to kill George McCloud every time he sets foot on this ranch, remember that.”

“Then Mr. McCloud ought not to be here. I don’t want him to stay if he is in danger!” exclaimed Dicksie.

“But I do want him to come here as if it mattered nothing, and I shall try to take care of him. I have a man among your own men, a cowboy named Wickwire, who will be watching Karg, and who is just as quick, and Karg, not knowing he was watched, would be taken unawares. If Wickwire goes elsewhere to work some one else will take his place here. Karg is not on the ranch now; he is up North, hunting up some of your steers that were run off last month by his own cronies. Now do you think I am giving you confidence?”

She looked at him steadily. “If I can only deserve it all.” In the distance she heard the calling of the men at the river borne on the wind. The shock of what had been told her, the strangeness of the night and of the scene, left her calm. Fear had given way to responsibility and Dicksie seemed to know herself.

“You have nothing whatever to do to deserve it but keep your own counsel. But listen a moment longer—for this is what I have been leading up 236