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 least it was not sufficient to impel him to lift his hand in any further expression of it, although Louise turned and looked back as if expecting it, wondering that he could let it pass so lightly.

"You've played hell now!" said Maud.

"Why, Maud! What have I done?"

"Who do you suppose put Withers on that wagon wheel, you poor little goose? Who was the rough wild feller that robbed the innocent colonel and fixed him so he couldn't follow?"

"Why, how should I know?" said Louise. "He could identify them, he said."

"I'll bet he could," said Maud, her face expressive of anything but mirth now.

She drove on, regardless of bumps, slashing pretty freely with her whip, the humor apparently gone out of the situation for her.

"I looked for him to sling his gun on me and take the team," Maud said, with something very close to a fearful look over her shoulder. "You darned little fool! standin' there pleadin' for that old robber after you'd cut him loose. You cuttin' him loose—of all the people on earth—you!"

"Well, why not? I don't see anything strange or funny about it."

"No, of course not. That's what made it so funny to me and dear old innocent Colonel Withers. What do you suppose Tom Laylander'll say when he hears of it?"

"Tom Laylander?"