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 make his camp in three days—two days on a forced hike—and have him back here in five; that or any other way in which I can help you.”

The reaction to her normal self was swift. It occurred to her that this man was wonderfully self-controlled. He was passing off a strange situation as if it were no unusual thing for him to find a girl in a secret cabin fifty miles from the nearest ranch. Her remarks must have sounded incoherent; she had spoken of things he had no way to know yet he showed no excitement or curiosity. She liked his level gaze—knew she had nothing to fear from him.

“I’m here alone, waiting for Dad Kinney to come. Please come in,” she said. “I’m starting dinner. As I work I’ll try and decide how I can take advantage of your offer to help.”

Flash prowled continuously between the two, his toenails clicking across the floor as he tried to keep within touching distance of each one. He sensed a certain constraint, an air of strangeness between them but he was too well pleased at having brought these two together to pay much heed to so trifling a thing as that.

When Moran picked up his axe Flash followed him outside. Moran selected a tall dead pine,