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 Bill clapped hand to his scabbard, to find it as empty as when he bought it. The discovery started him with a nervous jump; a hot wave chased a cold one up his backbone and seemed to run out of his nose.

"What're you up to, sneakin' my gun that way?" he demanded, so suspicious of treachery now his hair began to crawl at the roots as if it was full of ants.

"I told Mr. MacKinnon I'd get it if I could," she said. "We didn't want to see you killed."

"You've made a fool out of me between you, and that's worse!" Dunham blurted, in full support of his own hot declaration.

"Not half as bad," she corrected him gently. "You can be a fool every day of the week and live happy, but you could only fight Ford Kellogg once."

"What did you do with it?"

"Dropped it in the weeds back there somewhere. You couldn't find it before morning."

"He'll think I'm afraid of him, he'll think he's put over his bluff!"

"Let him," she said calmly.

"MacKinnon put you up to it!"

"No, he didn't. He said it couldn't be done. Don't be sore, Mr. Dunham; you'll thank me for it when you understand what you've missed."

"Maybe I will," he replied, sulky and ungracious. "You've put me in a h—a dickens of a fix! How'm I goin' back to face that man without a gun?"

"You've got about as good a chance without it as with it," she replied, a note of asperity in her smooth low voice. "You don't know Kellogg. No man ever