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 curse our kind."

"He is dead," she said softly. "It is easier to forgive when the transgressor is dead."

"Much easier," he granted, thinking of his own compassion for Dale Findlay, creeping in the gathering blindness of death toward his horse.

Alma was silent again. Tears suffused the brightness of her eyes when she lifted her head and looked into his face, and smiled. He knew that Hal Nearing's sin against her had been washed away, and that no pang of it remained to trouble the serenity of her heart.

"This happened while you and Fred were taking Findlay's body to Bonita," she explained, prefacing what she had to disclose. "Uncle Hal called for me just a little while before he died and turned over my shares in the Elk Mountain Cattle Company, or rather my father's shares which came to me from him. Ed, I never dreamed that I owned a little more than a third of the company's stock."

"I don't believe you're even listed as a stockholder," he said.

"No; Uncle Hal used my stock as his own. He was my guardian until I came of age."

"And never made any settlement afterwards," said Barrett conclusively.

"No. He continued to vote my stock as his own. Together with what he and Aunt Hope held, he could do everything he wanted to do. That's how he always kept himself elected president, and Aunt Hope secretary and treasurer. She is still, you know."

"I know," said Barrett, thinking a good deal faster