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108 he'll be out of this house like a scairt coyote. Brace up!”

She struggled and won a partial control.

“I'm fighting hard, Buck.”

“Fight harder still. You ought to know him better than I do. When he's like this it drives him wild to have other folks thinkin' about him.”

He looked over to Dan. In spite of the bowed head of the latter as he listened to Haines yarning he gave an impression of electric awareness to all that was around him.

“Talk soft,” whispered Buck. “Maybe he knows we're talkin' about him.”

He raised his voice out of the whisper, breaking in on a sentence about Joan, as if this were the tenor of their talk. Then he lowered his tone again.

“Think quick. Talk soft. Do you want Dan kept here?”

“For God's sake, yes.”

“Suppose the posse gets him here?”

“We musn't dodge the law.”

They were gauging their voices with the closest precision. Talking like this so close to Barry was like dancing among flasks of nitroglycerine. Once, and once only, Lee Haines cast a desperate eye across to them, begging them to come to his rescue, then he went back to his talk with Dan, raising his voice to shelter the conference of the other two.

“If they come, he'll fight.”