eling of guilt,
the man shut out all thought, for the present, of deserting Goldite and
the plot. That Beth would learn nothing from himself as to Glen's
condition was a certainty. He was glad of this wisdom in the boy--this
show of courage whereby he had wished his sister spared.

But the more he thought upon Beth's attitude towards himself, and the
mystifying confessions old Billy Stitts had made, concerning the
errands he was running for the girl, the more Bostwick fretted and
warmed with exasperation, suspicion, and jealousy. He returned to
McCoppet's. The door to the den was still barred. Impatiently he
started again for Mrs. Dick's. He was not in the least certain as to
what he meant to do or say, but felt obliged to do something.

Meantime, Beth had written to her brother. Bostwick's evasions and
lies had aroused more than merely a vague alarm in her breast. She had
begun to feel, perhaps partially by intuition, that something was
altogether wrong. Searle's anxiety to assure her she need not write to
Glen--that he was coming to Goldite--had provided the one required
element to excite a new trend in her thought. She knew that Glen would
not come soon to town. She knew she must get him word. She had
thought of one way only to insure herself and Glen against deceit--ask
Van to go in person with her letter, and bring her Glen's reply.

Had she felt the affair to be in the slightest degree unimportant she
might have hesitated to think of making this request, but the more she
dwelt upon it the more essential it seemed to become. Her brothers
very life might be dependent upon this promptness of action. A very
large sum of money was certainly involved in some sort of business of
which, she felt, both she and Glen were in ignorance. Bostwick had
certainly not seen Glen at all. His deceptions might mean
anything!--the gravest of dangers to them all!

It had taken her the briefest time only to resolve upon her course--and
then old Billy came upon the scene, as if in answer to a question she
had asked--how to get her request and the letter to Glen across the
hills to Van, at the "Laughing Water" claim?

Three letters she wrote, and tore to scraps, before one was finally
composed to express all she felt, in the way that she wished it
expressed. Old Billy went off to wait and returned there duly,
enormously pleased by his commission. He knew the way to the "Laughing
Water" claim and could ride the borrow