y mind, and went back, shot your friend, and
hiked off into the hills with a pack horse loaded with gold."

Out of all this one thing stood out terribly to her. "You shot Jack
Flatray--again!"

He laughed. One lie more or less made no difference. "I sure did."

She had to moisten her lips before she could ask the next question:
"You--killed him?"

"No--worse luck!"

"How do you know?"

"He and another man were on the trail after me to-day. I saw them pass up
Moose Creek from a ledge on which I was lying. If I had had a rifle, I
would have finished the job; but my carbine was gone. It was too far for a
six-gun."

"But, if you wounded him last night, how could he be trailing you
to-day?"

"I reckon it was a flesh wound. His shoulder was tied up, I noticed."
Impatiently he waved Flatray out of the conversation. "I didn't come here
to tell you about him. I got to get out on tonight's train. This country
has grown too hot for me. You're going with me?"

"No!"

"Yes, by God!"

"I'll never go with you--never--never!" she cried passionately. "I'm free
of the bargain. You broke faith. So shall I."

She saw his jaw clamp. "So you're going to throw me down, are you?"

Melissy stood before him, slim and straight, without yielding an inch. She
was quite colorless, for he was a man with whose impulses she could not
reckon. But one thing she knew. He could never take her away with him and
escape. And she knew that he must know it, too.

"If you want to call it that. You tricked me into marrying you. You meant
to betray me all the time. Go, while there's still a chance. I don't want
your blood on my hands."

It was characteristic of him that he always wanted more what he could not
get.

"Don't answer so quick, girl. Listen to me. I've got enough in that sack
to start us in the cattle business in Argentina. There's more buried in
the hills, if we need it. Girl, I tell you I'm going to run straight from
to-day!"

She laughed scornfully. "And in the same breath you tell me how much you
have stolen and are taking with you. If you were a Croesus, I wouldn't go
with you." She flamed into sudden, fierce passion. "Will you never
understand that I hate and detest you?"

"You think you do, but you don't. You love me--only you won't let yourself
believe it."

"There's no arguing with such colossal conceit," she retorted, with hard
laughter. "It's no use to tell you that I should like to see you dead at
my feet."

Swif