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 "Help!" Nearing repeated, infinitely bitter. "There is no help when a man like me can't help himself!"

He came a step nearer, leaned forward in his earnestness, speaking almost in Barrett's face.

"Can you think it a trivial matter, a compact between thieves, when I'd lift my hand against you to keep it locked a little longer with its damned consuming fire in my heart? Help! By God, Barrett! I tell you I've been riding the range like a madman for two days, hoping to rid myself of that wolf. But he's never alone; they're always with him, close to him as his shadow."

"But how long is this thing going to keep on?"

"Till one of us is dead!"

"He doesn't appear to be after you very hard," said Barrett, unable yet, for all the cattleman's dramatic earnestness, his half confession, to absolve him of some scoundrelly partnership in a criminal business that had grown out of his control.

"No; he wants to suck the last drop of my living blood!"

"But your friends, Senator Nearing"

"They can only destroy me if they interfere. I've suffered alone, I've burned, to avoid the disgrace and pain this scoundrel could bring to those who love me."

"I don't suppose it matters who—who—clears the atmosphere of that scoundrel, as long as it's done," Barrett said.

"Who can reach him if I fail? Barrett, you can't bring down a shadow with your gun. I've tried for two days to head off what they'd set to spring on you,