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 "No, Miss Zora," Bill replied, his voice steady and frank, "I wouldn't even 'a' tried it."

"You made it on the bluff you threw in my father's face, singlin' him out that way from the rest of them," she charged, hot blood rising in her pale face. "You knew darned well he wasn't a fightin' man—not that kind of a fightin' man."

"When you get the straight of it some day, and stand off and look at it calm and cool," Bill said, beginning to feel his contrition dissolving fast away as the incidents of his reception at Moore's camp flashed up like a flare revealing his just grievance, "you'll be a little easier on me, maybe."

"You made a quick deal, sellin' out on the fame you got by killin' Ford Kellogg," she sneered. "Your big nhame's worth money to you now, but wait and see where you'll land."

Bill turned his horse and drew up beside her, heading the way he had come. He put out his hand with a dignified slow motion, as if to fix her attention on some object down the road.

"I could say a whole lot on my side of this thing, but I know it wouldn't do a bit of good," he said. "I bid you good-by when I passed your house, so I guess I'll be rackin' on."

"Good-by?" She looked at him queerly, her eyes stretching, her mouth half open. "You must be crazy! I wasn't there."

"No, but I thought you were."

"Oh, Mr. Dunham! what made you do it, what made you do it!" she said, her contemptuous hard manner