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 they sat in silence, Alma stretching her hand abstractedly to catch the falling leaves. Barrett looked at her covertly, as if to undertake something he might not be permitted to do, as he filled his pipe the second time and tried to suppress the crackle of the match. She was so engrossed by her thoughts that she did not interpose, nor put out a hand to deny him this solace so long suspended.

"Ed," she began presently, her gaze on the ground, "I asked Uncle Hal to discharge Findlay after that shooting. I never was so surprised and humiliated in my life as I was when he refused. The worst of it is, Ed, he can't."

"Yes, I know it," he replied.

"What do you suppose that man Findlay is, Ed?" she asked, turning to him suddenly.

"I believe he's the biggest crook on this range."

"He's the king-pin of the cattle rustlers in this part of the country," she said, her voice lowered to a fearful whisper, her face white. She sat a moment leaning toward him, as she had bent to impart her disturbing secret, her breath laboring, her manner painfully agitated. "Manuel knows, he knows more than anybody suspects. They wouldn't let him live an hour if they knew."

"I've suspected something of the kind," Barrett told her, no surprise quickening in him at her revelation.

"I've thought for a long time he's got some kind of a grip on Uncle Hal, he's changed so in the last three or four years. I knew it when he refused to discharge Findlay, yes, I knew it that night—that night he