ngth: "When you make down the bunks," said Donnegan, "put mine
farthest from the kitchen. You had better do that first."

"Yes--sir," came the deep bass murmur behind him.

And the heart of Donnegan stirred, for that "sir" meant many things.

Presently George crossed the floor with a burden; there was the "whish"
of the blankets being unrolled--and then a slight pause. It seemed to
him that he could hear a heavier breathing. Why? And searching swiftly
back through his memory he recalled that his other gun, a stub-nosed
thirty-eight, was in the center of his blanket roll.

And he knew that George had the weapon in his big hand. One pressure of
the trigger would put an end to Donnegan; one bullet would give George
the canvas sack and its small treasure.

"When you clean my gun," said Donnegan, "take the action to pieces and
go over every part."

He could actually feel the start of George.

Then: "Yes, sir," in a subdued whisper.

If the escape from the knife had startled George, this second incident
had convinced him that his new master possessed eyes in the back of his
head.

And Donnegan, paying no further heed to him, looked steadily across the
hillside to the white tent of Lou Macon, fifty yards away.

16

His plan, grown to full stature so swiftly, and springing out of
nothing, well nigh, had come out of his first determination to bring
Jack Landis back to Lou Macon; for he could interpret those blank, misty
eyes with which she had sat after the departure of Landis in only one
way. Yet to rule even the hand of big Jack Landis would be hard enough
and to rule his heart was quite another story. Remembering Nelly Lebrun,
he saw clearly that the only way in which he could be brought back to
Lou was first to remove Nelly as a possibility in his eyes. But how
remove Nelly as long as it was her cue from her father to play Landis
for his money? How remove her, unless it were possible to sweep Nelly
off her feet with another man? She might, indeed, be taken by storm, and
if she once slighted Landis for the sake of another, his boyish pride
would probably do the rest, and his next step would be to return to Lou
Macon.

All this seemed logical, but where find the man to storm the heart of
Nelly and dazzle her bright, clever eyes? His own rags had made him
shrug his shoulders; and it was the thought of clothes which had made
him fasten his attention so closely on the man of the linen suit in
Lebrun's. Donn