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Rh Goblet. After a brief word together, Stanton and Hurley followed them, sending the remaining mounted man back to the camp with the fellow on foot.

"It's the devil's own mess of an affair, any way you look at it," grunted Hurley savagely. "And plumb ridiculous. What's all the fuss about, do you suppose Booth?"

"Don't know," snapped Stanton, his eyes moody as they rested upon the backs of Embry and Beatrice. "Miss Corliss wants Steele put off, and I guess she wants the joy of watching us chuck him. As for that Embry gent … brr!"

"Don't like him, eh?" laughed Hurley, ready to salve his own irritation by plaguing his friend. "She does, though. You'll have to shove him off a cliff, my boy, before you ever get a chance to …."

"Shut up," growled Stanton. "You're talking nonsense."

But a dark flush had crept up into his cheeks, and his eyes were frowning thoughtfully. Hurley shrugged, then dropping the reins to his horse's neck rolled a cigarette and abandoned the subject.

"Here we go," he said presently as, the four riders strung out singly in the narrow trail, he brought up the rear, "three able bodied men and a pretty girl, to chuck old Bill Steele off the earth! Steele'll see the humour of it; he's the man for seeing things like that. Don't know him, do you, Booth?"

"No, and don't want to," was Stanton's curt answer.

Again Ed Hurley shrugged and now gave over all attempt at conversation, for the remainder of the ride