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 wide apart, clenching his fists till he trembled in the vehemence of his sudden passion. "Damn them! I'll fight them to a finish!"

"You're all right now, honey," she said, a tremor in her voice, a dimness of tears in her eyes. She looked at him, smiling, a twisted little smile that hovered over an outbreak of downright tears.

"It's my property, it's my home, even if it don't amount to much. I'll defend it down to the last kick there is in me!"

He stepped over briskly and picked up his gun, scraping the trickling drops of his late ablution from his cheek with the rim of his hand.

"Yes, I knew you would," she said. "I'd like to stick around and help you, Ned, if you'll let me."

"You can help me more, Edith, if you'll cut across to Lost Cabin and send the sheriff and coroner over here," he said. "They had a double turn of rope around my shack—" indignantly, pounding the air in denunciation of the outrage—"with four horses hitched to it, trying to drag it down. It's there yet—the sheriff can see—right there yet!"

"If you think I'd better go, Ned," she consented.

"Somebody'll have to go, and I can't leave it to them to come back here and finish it off. Have you got anything to cut the wire?"

"I always carry something to cut the wire."

"Bring the sheriff in the short way—if he's got the nerve to come."

She nodded, starting up the bank for her horse. He caught her arm.