like all the rest!"

His knee struck the floor with a soft thud.

"Come on, Nell. Don't be hard on me. I thought you were stringing me a
little. But if you're playing straight, tell me what you want?"

At that she bounced upright on the bed, and before he could rise she
caught him by both shoulders.

"I want Donnegan," she said fiercely.

"What?"

"I want him dead!"

Joe Rix gasped.

"Here's the cause of all my trouble. Just because I flirted with him
once or twice, Nick thought I was in earnest and now he's sulking. And
Donnegan puts on airs and acts as if I belonged to him. I hate him, Joe.
And if he's gone Nick will come back to me. He'll come back to me, Joe;
and I want him so!"

She found that Joe Rix was staring straight into her eyes, striving to
probe her soul to its depths, and by a great effort she was enabled to
meet that gaze. Finally the fat little man rose slowly to his feet. Her
hands trailed from his shoulders as he stood up and fell helplessly upon
her lap.

"Well, I'll be hanged, Nell!" exclaimed Joe Rix.

"What do you mean?"

"You're not acting a part? No, I can see you mean it. But what a
cold-blooded little--" He checked himself. His face was suddenly
jubilant. "Then we've got him, Nell. We've got him if you're with us. We
had him anyway, but we'll make sure of him if you're with us. Look at
this! You saw me put a paper in my pocket when I opened the door of my
room? Here it is!"

He displayed before the astonished eyes of Nelly Lebrun a paper covered
with an exact duplicate of her own swift, dainty script. And she read:

Nick is terribly angry and is making trouble. I have to get
away. It isn't safe for me to stay here. Will you help me?
Will you meet me at the shack by Donnell's ford tomorrow
morning at ten o'clock?

"But I didn't write it," cried Nelly Lebrun, bewildered.

"Nelly," Joe Rix chuckled, flushing with pleasure, "you didn't. It was
me. I kind of had an idea that you wanted to get rid of this Donnegan,
and I was going to do it for you and then surprise you with the good
news."

"Joe, you forged it?"

"Don't bother sayin' pretty things about me and my pen," said Rix
modestly. "This is nothin'! But if you want to help me, Nelly--"

His voice faded partly out of her consciousness as she fought against a
tigerish desire to spring at the throat of the little fat man. But
gradually it dawned on her that he was asking her to write out that note
herself. Why?