dn't I think well of it? But will it do any good, and mayn't
it do harm? Sonia has no brains. If you can't see any resemblance
between Arthur and the pictures of Horace Endicott, what can Sonia see?"

"The eyes of hate, and the eyes of love," said he sagely.

"Then I'd be afraid to bring them together," she admitted whispering
again, and cowering into his arms. "If he suspects I am hunting him
down, he will have no pity."

"No doubt of it," he said thoughtfully. "I have always felt the devil in
him. Endicott was a fat, gay, lazy sport, that never so much as rode
after the hounds. Now Arthur Dillon has had his training in the mines.
That explains his dare-devil nature."

"And Horace Endicott was betrayed by the woman he loved," she cried with
sudden fierceness. "That turns a man sour quicker than all the
mining-camps in the world. That made him lean and terrible like a wolf.
That sharpened his teeth, and gave him a taste for woman's blood. That's
why he hates me."

"You're wrong again, my pet. He has a liking for you, but you spoil it
by laying hands on his own. You saw his looks when he was hunting for
young Everard."

"Oh, how he frightens me," and she began to walk the room in a rage.
"How I would like to throw off this fear and face him and fight him, as
I face you. I'll do it if the terror kills me. I shall not be terrified
by any man. You shall hunt him down, Dick Curran. Begin at once. When
you are ready send for Sonia. I'll bring them together myself, and take
the responsibility. What can he do but kill me?"

Sadness came over the detective as she returned to her seat on his knee.

"He is not the kind, little girl," said he, "that lays hands on a woman
or a man outside of fair, free, open fight before the whole world."

"What do you mean?" knowing very well what he meant.

"If he found you on his trail," with cunning deliberation, so that every
word beat heart and brain like a hammer, "and if he is really Horace
Endicott, he would only have to give your character and your
address----"

"To the dogs," she shrieked in a sudden access of horror.

Then she lay very still in his arms, and the man laughed quietly to
himself, sure that he had subdued her and driven her crazy scheme into
limbo. The wild creature had one dread and by reason of it one master.
Never had she been so amenable to discipline as under Dillon's remote
and affable authority. Curran had no fear of consequences in studying
the secret y