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 we want to be sure. Then when the BarT men come we can close in on them from both ways at once.”

The message which Flash bore to Betty that night carried the news of the find. She was not in the cabin when Flash arrived but he followed her warm trail up to where she sat with Kinney on the point of rocks.

It was too dark to read it without the aid of matches which Kinney shielded with his hands. She found its text disquieting and she feared terribly for Moran. Its effect upon the old man beside her was exactly the opposite. He looked back over the better part of a century of strenuous life and found that his most pleasant memories were those of the wildest days. He knew he could not stay out of the coming fight.

“Hell will break loose in these hills in a day or two,” he prophesied and the girl detected an eager note in the old man’s voice.

A dim glow showed through the trees on the point of the spur which hid the marshal’s camp. A bright blaze danced in a meadow just across the ridge from it and Kinney knew that Harmon had just arrived with the BarT men. Another tiny point of light caught his eye; up among the