save you and the others from a piece of
wicked treachery."

She straightened herself, and there was a flash in her eyes, but
Nasmyth raised one hand.

"No," he protested, almost sternly, "I can't let you do this. You
would remember it ever afterwards with regret."

The girl seemed to nerve herself for an effort, and when she spoke her
voice was impressively quiet.

"You must listen and try to understand," she said.

"It is not only because it would hurt me to see you and the others
tricked out of what you have worked so hard for that I feel I must
tell you. If there was nothing more than that, I might, perhaps, never
have told you, after all. I want to save my father from a shameful
thing." Her voice broke away, and the crimson flush on her face
deepened as she went on again. "He has been offering to sell land that
can't belong to him," she asserted accusingly.

Nasmyth felt sorry for her, and he made an attempt to offer her a
grain of consolation.

"A few acres are really his," he said. "I made them over to him."

"To be his only if he did his share, and when the scheme proved
successful," Laura interrupted. "I know, if he has sold them, what an
opportunity of harassing you it will give the men who are plotting
against you. Still, now you know, you can, perhaps, break off the
bargain. I want you to do what you can"--and she glanced at him with a
tense look in her eyes--"if it is only to save him."

"That," replied Nasmyth quietly, "is, for quite another reason, the
object I have in view. I would like you to understand that I have
guessed that he had failed us already. It may be some little
consolation. Now, perhaps, you had better tell me exactly what you
know."

Laura did so, and it proved to be no more than Nasmyth had suspected.
Letters had passed between Waynefleet and somebody in Victoria, and
the day after he left for that city two men, who had evidently crossed
him on the way, arrived at the ranch. One said his name was Hames, and
his conversation suggested that he supposed the girl was acquainted
with her father's affairs. In any case, what he said made it clear
that he had either purchased, or was about to purchase from
Waynefleet, certain land in the valley. After staying half an hour,
the men had, Laura understood, set out again for Victoria.

When she had told him this, Nasmyth sat thoughtfully silent a minute
or two. Her courage and hatred of injustice had stirred him deeply,
for he knew wha