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"I wish to God I could read your mind," he said at last, "but I'll take your word that you did it without thinking."

His hand slowly met Silent's.

"An' what about the girl now, Lee?"

"I'll send her back to her father's ranch. It will be easy to put her on the right way."

"Don't you see no reason why you can't do that?"

"Are you playing with me?"

"I'm talkin' to you as I'd talk to myself. If she's loose she'll describe us all an' set the whole range on our trail."

Haines stared.

Silent went on: "If we can't turn her loose, they's only one thing left—an' that's to take her with us wherever we go."

"On your honour, do you see no other way out?"

"Do you?"

"She may promise not to speak of it."

"There ain't no way of changin' the spots of a leopard, Lee, an' there ain't no way of keepin' a woman's tongue still."

"How can we take a girl with us."

"It ain't goin' to be for long. After we pull the job that comes on the eighteenth, we'll blow farther south an' then we'll let her go."