n the telephone.

CHAPTER XLI

DICKSIE'S RIDE

When Lance Dunning entered the room ten minutes later, Dicksie stood
at the telephone; but the ten minutes of that interval had made quite
another creature of his cousin. The wires were down and no one from
any quarter gave a response to her frantic ringing. Through the
receiver she could hear only the sweep of the rain and the harsh
crackle of the wind. Sometimes praying, sometimes fainting, and
sometimes despairing, she stood clinging to the instrument, ringing
and pounding upon it like one frenzied. Lance looked at her in
amazement. "Why, God a'mighty, Dicksie, what's the matter?"

He called twice to her before she turned, and her words almost stunned
him: "Why did you not detain Sinclair here to-night? Why did you not
arrest him?"

Lance's sombrero raked heavily to one side of his face, and one end of
his mustache running up much higher on the other did not begin to
express his astonishment. "Arrest him? Arrest Sinclair? Dicksie, are
you crazy? Why the devil should I arrest Sinclair? Do you suppose I am
going to mix up in a fight like this? Do you think _I_ want to get
killed? The level-headed man in this country, just at present, is the
man who can keep out of trouble, and the man who succeeds, let me tell
you, has got more than plenty to do."

Lance, getting no answer but a fierce, searching gaze from Dicksie's
wild eyes, laid his hand on a chair, lighted a cigar, and sat down
before the fire. Dicksie dropped the telephone receiver, put her hand
to her girdle, and looked at him. When she spoke her tone was
stinging. "You know that man is going to Medicine Bend to kill his
wife!"

Lance took the cigar from his mouth and returned her look. "I know no
such thing," he growled curtly.

"And to kill George McCloud, if he can."

He stared without reply.

"You heard him say so," persisted Dicksie vehemently.

Lance crossed his legs and threw back the brim of his hat. "McCloud is
nobody's fool. He will look out for himself."

"These fiendish wires to Medicine Bend are down. Why hasn't this line
been repaired?" she cried, wringing her hands. "There is no way to
give warning to any one that he is coming, and you have let him go!"

Lance whirled in his chair. "Damnation! Could I keep him from going?"

"You did not want to; you are keeping out of trouble. What do you care
whom he kills to-night!"

"You've gone crazy, Dicksie. Your imagination has upset