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"I tell you," said Haines, "the boy's in love with her. I watched them at Morgan's place. She can twist him around her finger."

A faint light broke the gloom of Silent's face.

"Yaller hair an' blue eyes. They c'n do a lot. Maybe you're right. What's that?" His voice had gone suddenly husky.

A russet moon pushed slowly up through the trees. Its uncertain light fell across the clearing. For the first time the thick pale smoke of the fire was visible, rising straight up until it cleared the tops of the willows, and then caught into swift, jagging lines as the soft wind struck it. A coyote wailed from the distant hills, and before his complaint was done another sound came through the hushing of the willows, a melancholy whistling, thin with distance.

"We'll see if that's the man you want," suggested Haines.

"I'll go along," said Shorty Rhinehart.

"And me too," said a third. The whole group would have accompanied them, but the heavy voice of Jim Silent cut in: "You'll stay here, all of you except the girl and Lee."

They turned back, muttering, and Kate followed Haines into the willows.

"Well?" growled Bill Kilduff.