edge you have of me?"

Betty heard the frightened gasp of the girls behind her, but, strangely
enough, she herself felt no fear.

"You wouldn't do that," she said, her clear gaze holding his burning
one. "You could not wish harm to a friend."

"Is that what you wish me to consider you--a friend?" asked the strange
man, feeling suddenly as though something warm and vital had closed
about his heart.

"If you will," replied Betty, reaching out her hand. "I would like very
much to be."

But Paul Loup, for all he was a murderer and an outcast, was also a
Frenchman. With a quick gesture, ignoring her outstretched hand he
caught her in his arms, held her there for a minute, then, releasing
her, kissed her gently, first on one cheek, then on the other.

"I had forgotten there were kind hearts in the world," he murmured
brokenly, turning from her. "You have restored my faith. _Au revoir_, my
friend."

Someway, somehow, the girls found themselves outside that little cabin,
making their way blindly down the path to where their horses were
tethered. In a daze they mounted and rode off down the trail.

When they came to the open trail they found that Betty was crying,
openly, unashamed. Mollie pushed a handkerchief into her hand, but the
Little Captain did not seem to notice it. She stared straight ahead, her
cheeks burning, the tears rolling unchecked down her face.

"Never mind, honey," said Mollie, trying to steady her voice. "It was
hard for you, I know; but I would give anything I own to have made him
feel that way about me. I don't care if he did commit murder. I'm for
him--strong."

"To be all alone," said Betty as though Mollie had not spoken, "and so
heart-hungry that a little sympathy from a stranger----" A sob choked
the rest of her sentence. But a moment later she faced the girls with a
light of resolve shining in her eyes.

"Girls," she said, "I don't believe Paul Loup is a murderer, and some
way or other I'm going to prove it. A man like that just couldn't commit
murder. I know it!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE PLAN

Certainly the girls had never expected such startling developments from
Mollie's simple little ruse to find out who the mysterious Hermit of
Gold Run was. In the beginning it had been something of a lark, and they
never dreamed that their interest and curiosity would uncover such a
tragedy.

However, they were not at all in sympathy with Betty's conviction that
Paul Loup had not really k