old
friend.

"No, Bill." He laughed. "I--hadn't the nerve to. I don't know as
I'll ever have the nerve to. But I want that little gal bad. I want
her so bad I feel I could get right out an' trail around these
darnation hills, an' skitter holes, hollering 'help' like some mangy
coyote chasing up her young. Oh, I'm going to ask her. I'll have to
ask her, if I have to get you to hand me the dope to fix my nerve
right. And, say, if she hands me the G. B. for that bladder of
taller-fat, Murray, why I'll just pack my traps, and hit the trail for
Bell River, and I'll sit around and kill off every darned neche so she
can keep right on handing herself all the gold she needs till she's
sitting atop of a mountain of it, which is just about where I'd like to
set her with these two dirty hands."

His eyes smiled as he held out his hands. But he went on at once.

"Now you've got it all. And I guess we'll let it go at that. You and
me, we're going to set right out on this new play. There isn't going
to be a word handed to a soul at the Fort, or anywhere else. Not a
word. There's things behind Allan Mowbray's death we don't know. But
that dirty half-breed knows 'em, if we don't. And the gold on the
river has a big stake in the game. That being so, the folk Allan left
behind him are to be robbed. Follow it? It kind of seems to me the
folk at the Fort are helpless. But--but we aren't. So it's up to me,
seeing how I feel about that little gal."

Kars had propped himself up under the effect of his rising excitement.
Now, as he finished speaking, he dropped back on his blankets with some
display of weariness.

Bill's eyes were watching him closely. He was wondering how much of
this he would have heard had Kars been his usual, robust self. He did
not think he would have heard so much.

He rose from his blankets.

"I'm all in, boy, on this enterprise," he said, in his amiable way.
"Meanwhile I'm dousing this light. You'll sleep then."

He blew out the lamp before the other could protest.

"I'll just get a peek at the boys on watch. I need to fix things with
Charley for the start up to-morrow."

He passed out of the tent crawling on his hands and knees. Nor did he
return till he felt sure that his patient was well asleep.

Even then he did not seek his own blankets. For a moment he studied
his friend's breathing with all his professional skill alert. Then,
once more, he withdrew, and took his place at