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 man's name, but he remembered it later—Gilbert Barradell."

Almayne paused. Lachlan, his head still supported in his hands, said nothing.

"He married the girl some six weeks ago," the hunter continued, his voice harsher than ever. "It was a real marriage performed by a Spanish priest. He is mad, about her, Aganuntsi says, and she is devoted to him. Concha has made him War Chief, and he and his wife spend part of their time in St. Augustine, where they are made much of by the Spaniards."

Almayne tugged at his moustache and glared at the top of Lachlan's bowed head.

"For God's sake, don't sit there like a stone!" he exclaimed. "What are we to do now? What are we to tell Jolie?"

Lachlan got to his feet slowly, a little unsteadily. He was dazed, his thoughts were a whirling chaos. Almayne seized his arm in a grip of iron and shook it.

"Pull yourself together, man," he said fiercely. "We must think this thing out here—now!"

They talked until late into the night. For a time they were like men struggling to set their thoughts in order again after the impact of some stunning physical shock. An inconceivable thing had happened. It had burst upon them without the slightest warning. At first they could not grapple with it.

Like drowning men clutching at straws, they clutched at the possibility of error, at the possibility that Aganuntsi had manufactured the story for some