."

Wade's face darkened.

"It was a confounded impertinence, whatever he wanted with it. But my
dislike of him goes farther back than that."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, resting her chin in her hand, and
looking him straight in the eyes, as she always did to those with whom
she talked.

"It largely depends on him. Santry--you know how hot-headed he is--would
run the herders away by force and kill off the sheep. As a last resort,
of course, we may have to do something like that, but I want to win this
fight without open violence if we can. A faction war, in the end, would
be likely to ruin us all."

"You must be careful," the girl declared earnestly. "Moran is not going
to be an easy man to handle. He seems to have plenty of money, and they
say here in town that he stands in with the government; that he has some
sort of 'pull.' He's clever, I think. He'll trick you if he can."

"I'm sure of that, Dorothy, but we're not going to let him. If only...!
Say, do you know something else that is being said in this town?
Something that they're saying about me?"

"Something nice?" her tone was archly inquiring.

He leaned forward and lightly rested his hand on her knee, just as he
might have done with a man friend, and she took as little notice of it.
His fingers were trembling a little under the stress of the emotion he
felt.

"They're saying, those who don't like me, I guess, that I'm afraid of
Moran and his crowd; afraid of a lot of sheep herders. No, of course, my
friends don't believe it," he hastened to add when she started to
interrupt. "But it's not doing me any good, especially now that public
feeling is running so high."

"But you mustn't mind what they say, Gordon. That's part of the courage
your friends know that you have; to do what you feel to be right, no
matter what is said."

Her cheeks were glowing with indignation, and he appreciatively patted
her hand before sitting erect in his chair again. It was no wonder, he
reflected, in that almost womanless land, that many a cowpuncher rode
the range by night, seeing her image in every star. The thought that
each single man, and many a married one, in Crawling Water, would ride
into the Pit itself to win one of her smiles, had been Wade's comfort,
even when he was thinking of the possibility of bloodshed between the
two hostile factions. But now, in the moment of her sympathy for him, he
felt that he could not be content without some further ass