e such a
request, and Rexhill was more worried than he had been before, in years.
He could only hope that Tug Bailey would escape capture. "Who is this?"
He put on his glasses, and deliberately looked Dorothy over. "Oh, it's
the young woman whom Race found in his office."

"She has come here to plead for Gordon Wade--to demand that I tell her
where he is now. I don't know, of course; none of us know; but I
wouldn't tell her if I did." Helen spoke triumphantly.

"You had better leave us," Rexhill said brusquely to Dorothy. "You are
not wanted here. Go home!"

While they were talking, Dorothy had looked from one to the other with
the contempt which a good woman naturally feels when she is impugned.
Now she crossed the room and confronted the Senator.

"Did you tell your daughter that I was caught in your office with Gordon
Wade?" she demanded; and before her steady gaze Rexhill winced.

"You don't deny it, do you?" he blustered.

"I don't deny being there with him, and I won't deny anything else to
such a man as you. I'm too proud to. For your own sake, however, you
would have done better not to have tried to blacken me." She turned
swiftly to his daughter. "Perhaps you don't know all that I supposed you
did. We were in Moran's office--Mr. Wade and myself--because we felt
sure that your father had some criminal purpose here in Crawling Water.
We were right. We found papers showing the location of gold on Mr.
Wade's ranch, which showed your father's reasons for trying to seize the
land."

Helen laughed scornfully.

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"No, of course not," her father growled. "Come on up to our rooms. Let
her preach here until she is put out." He was on his way to the door
when the vibrant command in Dorothy's voice halted him.

"Wait. You'd better listen to me, for it's the last chance you'll have.
I have you absolutely at my mercy. I've caught you! You are trapped!"
There was no doubting that the girl believed what she said, and the
Senator's affairs were in a sufficiently precarious state to bid him
pause.

"Nonsense!" He made his own tone as unconcerned as he could, but there
was a look of haunting dread in his eyes.

"Senator Rexhill,"--Dorothy's voice was low, but there was a quality in
it which thrilled her hearers,--"when my mother and I visited your
daughter a few days ago, she gave my mother a blotter. There was a
picture on it that reminded my mother of me as a child; that was why