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 he—pulled his gun on you out there by the gate."

"Alma!"

"I knew it! You took the blame, Edgar Barrett, to spare us the shame of his unspeakable deed. He tried to kill you that night because you knew too much. Tell me what it is."

"I provoked him, I didn't go at it right," Barrett excused, seeing that it would be useless to deny what she knew too well.

"There was something more than sudden irritation behind his attempt," she declared in great earnestness. "Uncle Hal never has been a man to shy at a shadow. You found out something between him and Findlay. What was it, Ed?"

"I was impatient, impertinent, maybe; but I was sore over that affair at Eagle Rock camp that day. I made the same demand that you did later—I said he had to fire Findlay and all his rustlin' gang. I didn't go at it right, you see."

"What did you say you'd do if he refused?" she asked him, shrewdly.

"Well, that's where I stumbled again, Alma. I made the blow that I'd take it up with the stockholders, tell what I knew, and try to oust him from the head of the company."

"And he would have killed you to keep you still!"

"He was tired that night, he'd been in the saddle two days, he told me. I had no right to bully him; maybe I got about what was comin' to me. Oh well, it was only a bluff, I think, anyway. His heart wasn't in it."

"Only you know better," she said, sadly. "He used