haracter, and though she had played on his jealousy in a
spirit of fun, she had been careful to make him see that anything more
than mere acquaintance was impossible. At least that was what she had
tried to do, and she doubted much whether she had succeeded.

Doubler was the only one who had betrayed any real friendship for her, and
to him, in her lonesomeness, she turned, in spite of the warning he had
given her. She had visited him once since the day following her father's
visit, and he had received her with his usual cordiality, but she had been
able to detect a certain constraint in his manner which had caused her to
determine to stay away from the Two Forks. But this morning she felt that
she must go somewhere, and she selected Doubler's cabin.

Since that day when on the edge of the butte overlooking the river Duncan
had voiced his suspicions that her father had planned to remove Doubler,
Sheila had felt more than ever the always widening gulf that separated her
from her parent. From the day on which he had become impatient with her
when she had questioned him concerning his intentions with regard to
Doubler he had treated her in much the manner that he always treated her,
though it had seemed to her that there was something lacking; there was a
certain strained civility in his manner, a veneer which smoothed over the
breach of trust which his attitude that day had created.

Many times, watching him, Sheila had wondered why she had never been able
to peer through the mask of his imperturbability at the real, unlovely
character it concealed. She believed it was because she had always trusted
him and had not taken the trouble to try to uncover his real character.
She had tried for a long time to fight down the inevitable, growing
estrangement, telling herself that she had been, and was, mistaken in her
estimate of his character since the day he had told her not to meddle with
his affairs, and she had nearly succeeded in winning the fight when Duncan
had again destroyed her faith with the story of her father's visit to
Dakota.

Duncan had added two and two, he had told her when furnishing her with the
threads out of which he had constructed the fabric of his suspicions, and
she was compelled to acknowledge that they seemed sufficiently strong.
Contemplation of the situation, however, had convinced her that Dakota was
partly to blame, and her anger against him--greatly softened since the
rescue at the quicksand--fla