insisted earnestly, "if this is all straight, with no fraud
concealed anywhere, if you have the proofs in your hands, why are you
afraid to talk openly? The very manner in which Hawley works should
convince you he is himself afraid to face the truth."

"No, you are wrong. There are perfectly satisfactory reasons why we
should for the present keep our plans secret. There are details yet to
be decided upon, and Mr. Hawley's present objection to publicity is only
ordinary prudence."

She leaned toward him, her fingers playing nervously with a knife.

"Mr. Keith, I cannot help but like you, and I also feel most kindly
disposed toward Mr. Hawley. I wish in this I was no longer compelled
to consider you an enemy to us both. There is no reason why I should,
except for your blind prejudice against this other man who is my friend.
I know you have some cause, for he has told me the entire story, yet I
am sure he did no more than his actual duty. He let me realize how very
sorry he was that the marshal at Carson City had called upon him for
assistance."

"Who? Hawley?" Keith questioned, hardly trusting his own ears.

"Yes; indeed he is a very different man from what you have been led
to believe. I know he is a gambler, and all that, but really it is not
altogether his fault. He told me about his life, and it was very sad.
He was driven from home when only a boy, and naturally drifted into evil
company. His one ambition is, to break away, and redeem himself. I am
so anxious to help him, and wish you could realize his purpose, as I do,
and become his friend. Won't you, for my sake? Why, even in this affair
he has not the slightest mercenary purpose--he has only thought of what
was rightfully mine."

Keith listened, feeling to the full the woman's earnestness, the
impossibility of changing her fixed conviction. Hawley had planted his
seed deep and well in fruitful soil.

"You make a strong and charming advocate, Miss Maclaire," he returned,
feeling the necessity of saying something. "I should like to have you
equally earnest on my side. Yet it will be hard to convince me that
'Black Bart' is the paragon of virtue you describe. I wish I might
believe for your sake. Did he also explain how he came into possession
of these papers?"

"Oh, yes, indeed; there is no secret about that. They were entrusted to
him by an old man whom he discovered sick in Independence, and who died
in his rooms three years ago. Mr. Hawley has been sea