red out again.

Two weeks had passed since Duncan had told her of his suspicions, and they
had been two weeks of constant worry and dread to her.

Unable to stand the suspense longer she had finally decided to seek out
Dakota to attempt to confirm Duncan's story of her father's visit and to
plead with Dakota to withhold his hand. But first she would see Doubler.

The task of talking to Dakota about anything was not to her liking, but
she compromised with her conscience by telling herself that she owed it to
herself to prevent the murder of Doubler--that if the nester should be
killed with her in possession of the plan for his taking off, and able to
lift a hand in protest or warning, she would be as guilty as her father or
Dakota.

As she rode she could not help contrasting Dakota's character to those of
her father and Duncan. She eliminated Duncan immediately, as being not
strong enough to compare either favorably or unfavorably with either of
the other two. And, much against her will, she was compelled to admit that
with all his shortcomings Dakota made a better figure than her father. But
there was little consolation for her in this comparison, for she bitterly
assured herself that there was nothing attractive in either. Both had
wronged her--Dakota deliberately and maliciously; her father had placed
the bar of a cold civility between her and himself, and she could no
longer go to him with her confidences. She had lost his friendship, and he
had lost her respect.

Of late she had speculated much over Dakota. That day at the quicksand
crossing he had seemed to be a different man from the one who had stood
with revolver in hand before the closed door of his cabin, giving her a
choice of two evils. For one thing, she was no longer afraid of him; in
his treatment of her at the crossing he had not appeared as nearly so
forbidding as formerly, had been almost attractive to her, in those
moments when she could forget the injury he had done her. Those moments
had been few, to be sure, but during them she had caught flashes of the
real Dakota, and though she fought against admiring him, she knew that
deep in her heart lingered an emotion which must be taken into account. He
had really done her no serious injury, nothing which would not be undone
through the simple process of the law, and in his manner on the day of the
rescue there had been much respect, and in spite of the mocking levity
with which he had met her reproac