ou leave here," he said, as Allen wheeled and faced him, his arms
folded over his chest as a declaration of his present peaceful intentions.
"But I want you to get this business straight before anything is started.
And then you'll be responsible. I'm giving it to you straight. Somebody's
framed up on me. I didn't shoot Doubler. When I left him he was cleaning
his rifle. After I left him I heard shooting. I thought it was him trying
his rifle, or I would have gone back.

"Then I met Sheila Langford on the river trail, near the cabin. She'd
heard the shooting, too. She thinks I did it. You think I did it, and
Duncan says he saw me do it. Doubler isn't dead. At least he wasn't dead
when I left the doctor with him at sundown. But he wasn't far from it, and
if he dies without coming to it's likely that things will look bad for me.
But because I knew he wasn't dead I took a chance on staying here. I am
not allowing that I'm going to let anyone hang me for a thing I didn't do,
and so if you're determined to get me without making sure that Doubler's
going to have mourners immediately, it's a dead sure thing that some one's
going to get hurt. I reckon that's all. I've given you fair warning, and
after you get back to the edge of the clearing our friendship don't count
any more."

He stepped back and closed the door.

Allen walked slowly toward the clearing, thinking seriously. He said
nothing to Langford or his men concerning his conversation with Dakota,
and though he covertly questioned the former he could discover nothing
more than that which the Double R owner had already told him. Several
times during the morning he was on the point of planning an attack on the
cabin, but Dakota's voice had a ring of truth in it and he delayed action,
waiting for some more favorable turn of events.

And so the hours dragged. The men lounged in the shade of the trees and
talked; Langford--though he had no further excuse for staying--remained,
concealing his impatience over Allen's inaction by taking short rides, but
always returning; Allen, taciturn, morose even, paid no attention to him.

The afternoon waned; the sun descended to the peaks of the mountains, and
there was still inaction on Allen's part, still silence from the cabin.
Just at sundown Allen called his men to him and told them to guard the
cabin closely, not to shoot unless forced by Dakota, but to be certain
that he did not escape.

He said they might expect him to return