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 "I guess you did your best—and your worst," Duncan retorted.

"I don't know what argument I can make, sirs, to convince you that I'm square with you, and always have been since the minute I went to work. I don't aim to excuse myself for lettin' them rope me down, yonder, and I'm not goin' to try. I don't know a man in that outfit by sight, and only one of them by his voice. I'm goin' to look for that man and bring him before you. Maybe you'll take his word for it where you hate to take mine."

"There wouldn't be any proof in a thief speaking for a thief, Hartwell."

Hartwell's face gorged with blood at the word "thief" as if apoplexy had taken him. He drew himself up in all the austerity of his lean frame and severe face and looked Duncan in the eye with a directness that made the big cow-man draw back a step.

"I'd go kind of easy on that word, sir," Hartwell warned him.

"Yes, I guess I shouldn't say that," Duncan reflected, with the bearing of a man who wanted to be fair. "It's a man's business to stand by his friends, and I can't blame you for that. But I do blame you, Hartwell, for taking a spy's advantage of us, crawlin' in the way you did and takin' that job of trail-rider."