Move them across the Divide until we see what comes of this Santry
affair. I can't go too heavy with the boy right at the start."

"All right." Moran arose. "The sheep don't count much now anyway."

"I don't mind saying, Race," Senator Rexhill observed, a trifle
pompously, "that you've done pretty well so far. If you stick to it,
you'll not find me ungrateful when the battle is over. You'll be
entitled to your reward."

Moran hesitated, seeming to summon courage to say something.

"Maybe you've guessed the reward I'll ask, Senator," he said slowly.
"There are some things that mean more to a man than mere money. I'm
thinking of Miss Helen."

Rexhill found some difficulty in placing his gaze so that it would
appear to naturally fall elsewhere than on Moran. He was mortified by a
sense of shame that he could not deal squarely with this aspirant for
his daughter's hand. He had been sincere in saying that he would never
barter her to further his own interests, but so much hung in the balance
here that until the issue really arose he feared to pass upon it. He
felt himself stultified by this truth.

"I haven't spoken to her, Senator, because the time has not come, and
just now she's too much occupied elsewhere, perhaps. But all my hopes
are fixed on her, sir, and when the time does come, I trust you'll not
oppose them."

Rexhill coughed to hide what his face might otherwise have shown.

"Well, Race," he said, with a choking sensation that was new to him,
"you know what I think of you. As for the rest, well, that will depend
entirely upon Helen."

CHAPTER VI

MURDER

"How do you think you'd like to live in Crawling Water?"

Wade looked whimsically at Helen, as she picked her way with the grace
of a kitten through the dust of the main street. Carefully though she
walked, her shoes and the bottom of her skirt were covered with dust,
and gray with it.

"I shouldn't like it," she said, with a little moue. "I don't see why
you stay here. You aren't going to always, are you?"

"I reckon it's likely."

"Not--for always?" She had stopped and was looking up into his face with
delicious dismay. "That would be awful."

"Most of my friends, and all of my business interests are here. Besides,
I have a kind of pride in growing up with this country. Back in the
East, things have been settled for so long that a man's only a cog in a
machine. Out here, a fellow has a sense of ownership, even in the hills.
I think i