ons. I've changed it
more than once, but that's my privilege and my own affair. Her name is
Merridy Bennett."

"I don't suppose you know I'm going to marry her," said the Kentuckian,
irrelevantly.

"No," replied the other, "I wasn't aware of the fact."

"Well, I am. I'll be your son-in-law." He said this as if it were the
statement of an astonishing truth, whereat Stark grinned, a mirthless,
disquieting sort of grimace, and said:

"There's a lot of things for you and me to settle up first. For one
thing, I want those mines of hers."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm her father, and she's not of age."

"I'll think it over."

"I'll take them, anyway, as her next of kin."

Burrell did not follow up this statement, for its truth was
incontrovertible, and showed that the father's ill-will was too
tangible a thing to be concealed; so he continued:

"We'll adjust that after Gale is attended to; but, meanwhile, what do
you want me to do?"

"I want you to arrest the man who killed my wife. If you don't take him
the miners will. I've got a following in this camp, and I'll raise a
crowd in fifteen minutes--enough to hang this squaw-man, or batter down
your barracks to get him. But I don't want to do that; I want to go by
the law you've talked so much about; I want you to do the trick."

At last Burrell saw the gambler's deviltry. He knew Stark's reputation
too well to think that he feared a meeting with Gale, for the man had
lived in hope of that these fifteen years, and had shaped his life
around such a meeting; but this indirect method--the Kentuckian felt a
flash of reluctant admiration for a man who could mould a vengeance
with such cruel hands, and, even though he came from a land of feuds,
where hate is a precious thing, the cunning strength of this man's
enmity dwarfed any he had ever known. Stark had planned his settlement
coldly and with deliberate malice; moreover he was strong enough to
stand aside and let another take his place, and thus deny to Gale the
final recourse of a hunted beast, the desperate satisfaction that the
trader craved. He tied his enemy's hands and delivered him up with his
thirst unsatisfied--to whom? He thrust a weapon into the hand of his
other enemy, and bade this other enemy use it; worse than that, forced
him to strike the man he honored--the man he loved. Burrell never
doubted that Stark had carefully weighed the effect of this upon Necia,
and had reasoned that a girl like her could not unde