omething kept telling me
that I ought to move around a little. I came here, I liked the place, and
I've stayed here. I know that neither of you are very much interested in
what has happened to me, but I've told you that much just to prove my
contention about the world being a small place. It surely isn't so very
big when you consider that three persons can meet up like we've met--our
trails leading us to the same section of the country."

"I don't see how that concerns us," said Langford impatiently.

"No," returned Dakota, and now there was a note of sarcasm in his voice,
"you don't see. Lots of folks don't see. But there are trails that lead
everywhere. Fate marks them out--blazes them. There are trails that lead
us into trouble, others that lead us to pleasure--straight trails, crooked
ones, trails that cross--all kinds. Folks start out on a crooked trail,
trying to get away from something, but pretty soon another trail crosses
the one they are on--maybe it will be a straight one that crosses theirs,
with a straight man riding it.

"The man riding the crooked trail and the man riding the straight one meet
at the place where the trails cross. Such trails don't lead to any
to-morrow; they are yesterday's trails, and before the man riding the
crooked trail and the man riding the straight trail can go any further
there has got to be an accounting. That is what has happened here.
You"--he smiled gravely as he looked at Langford--"have been riding a
crooked trail. I have been hanging onto the straight one as best I could.
Now we've got to where the trails cross."

"Meaning that you want an explanation of my action in burning that signed
agreement, I suppose?" sneered Langford, looking up.

"Still trying to ride the crooked trail?" smiled Dakota, with the first
note of mockery that Sheila had heard in his voice since he had begun
speaking. "I'm not worrying a bit about that agreement. Why, man, I'd have
shot myself before I'd have shot Doubler. He's my friend--the only real
friend I've had in ten years."

"Then when you signed the agreement you didn't mean to keep it?"
questioned Langford incautiously, disarmed by Dakota's earnestness.

"Ten years ago a boy named Ned Keegles went to Dakota. I am glad to see
that you are familiar with the name," he added with a smile as Langford
started and stiffened in his chair, his face suddenly ashen. "You knowing
Keegles will save me explaining a lot," continued Dakota. "Well, Kee