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 Fannie Goodnight's back. It was more like the indefinable, knowledge-gathering stare of a little girl.

"I've made boots for lots of them big Indians down there," said Uncle Boley; "them ranchers along just below the line. They used to come up here regular, but in the last year or so they've been givin' me the go-by."

He named over several, all of whom Fannie knew, and added some detail to what the old man had said to prove the genuineness of her acquaintance. This pleased Uncle Boley mightily; it was the same as meeting an old friend. And Fannie was glad that such a safe vein had been opened for her to follow. It relieved her of the necessity of facing about and talking to Sallie McCoy, whose cool brown eyes she seemed to feel looking through her, right down to the end of her last pitiful secret, and despising them all.

Texas was growing so uneasy that he was beginning to sweat. He wanted to pass a hint to Fannie to go, and stood shifting his weight from leg to leg, debating whether it wouldn't be the most honest thing to take Sallie into the secret then and there, thus relieving the suspicion that he saw growing up in her mind. But doubt over Sallie's readiness to accept on such short notice, and under such peculiar conditions, the girl who had been a