curse
again and over again, but that will not put Ed Banks on his feet."

Sinclair stamped with frenzied oaths. "You're too hard on me," he
cried, clenching his hands. "I say you're too hard. You've heard one
side of it. Is that the way you put judgment on a man that's got no
friends left because they start a new lie on him every day? Who is it
that's watching me? Let them stand out like men in the open. If they
want me, let them come like men and take me!"

"Sinclair, this storm gives you a chance to get away; take it. Bad as
you are, there are men in Medicine Bend who knew you when you were a
man. Don't stay here for some of them to sit on the jury that hangs
you. If you can get away, get away. If I were your friend--and God
knows whom you can call friend in Medicine Bend to-night--I couldn't
say more. Get away before it is too late."

He was never again seen alive in Medicine Bend. They tracked him next
day over every foot of ground he had covered. They found where he had
left his spent horse and where afterward he had got the fresh one.
They learned how he had eluded all the picketing planned for precisely
such a contingency, got into the Wickiup, got upstairs and burst open
the very door of McCloud's room. But Dicksie had on her side that
night One greater than her invincible will or her faithful horse.
McCloud was two hundred miles away.

Barnhardt lost no time in telephoning the Wickiup that Sinclair was in
town, but within an hour, while the two women were still under the
surgeon's protection, a knock at the cottage door gave them a second
fright. Barnhardt answered the summons. He opened the door and, as the
man outside paused to shake the snow off his hat, the surgeon caught
him by the shoulder and dragged into the house Whispering Smith.

Picking the icicles from his hair, Smith listened to all that
Barnhardt said, his eyes roving meantime over everything within the
room and mentally over many things outside it. He congratulated
Barnhardt, and when Marion came into the room he apologized for the
snow he had brought in. Dicksie heard his voice and cried out from the
bedroom. They could not keep her away, and she ran out to catch his
hands and plead with him not to go away. He tried to assure her that
the danger was over; that guards were now outside everywhere, and
would be until morning. But Dicksie clung to him and would take no
refusal.

Whispering Smith looked at her in amazement and in admiration.