" begged the chairman. "Killing off your
friends for the sake of giving Harlan Thornton a liberal education
doesn't appeal to me."

"My real reason wouldn't, either--not just now," returned the Duke,
enigmatically.

At that moment half a dozen gaunt hounds raced around the corner of "The
Barracks." They leaped at Thornton playfully, daubing his crash suit
with their dusty paws. He seemed to recognize them. He cursed them and
kicked them away savagely.

CHAPTER III

DENNIS KAVANAGH'S GIRL

A rangy roan horse followed the dogs, galloping so wildly that when his
rider halted him his hoofs tore up the turf as he slid. A girl rode him.
She was mounted astride, and Presson had to look twice at her to make
sure she was a girl, for she wore knickerbockers and gaiters, and her
copper-red hair curled so crisply that it seemed as short as a boy's.

"Good-morning, Mr. Duke," she called. "Is Harlan down from the woods
yet?"

The old man turned to march off after a scornful glance at her. He
kicked away another dog. Then he whirled and stepped back toward her. It
was anger and not courtesy that impelled him.

"He isn't here, and he won't be here. And how many times more have I got
to tell you not to be impertinent to me?"

"How, Mr. Duke?"

"By that infernal nickname," he stormed. "Young woman, I've told you to
stay on your side of the river, and you--"

"Really you ought to be called 'Duke' if you order folks off the earth
that way," she cried, saucily. "But I did not come to see you, Mr. Duke.
I came to see Harlan. Has he got home yet?"

She swung sideways on her horse and nursed her slender ankle across her
knee. It was plain that she had expected this reception, and knew how to
meet it. She gazed at him serenely from big, gray eyes. She smiled and
held her head a little to one side, her nose tiptilted a bit, giving her
an aggravatingly teasing expression.

"I tell you he's not here, and he won't be here."

"Oh yes, he will. For"--she smiled more broadly, and there was malice in
her eyes--"I sent word to him to come, and he's coming."

"You sent word to him, you red-headed Irish cat? What do you mean?"

The lord of Fort Canibas strode close to her, passion on his face.
Presson could see that this was no suddenly evoked quarrel between the
two. It was hostility reawakened.

"I mean that I'm looking out for the interests of Harlan when those at
home are plotting against him. I hear the news. I listen to