other out."

"Meanin' that Langford's hired Dakota to look for me?" Doubler's eyes were
gleaming brightly.

"You're some keen, after all," taunted Duncan.

Doubler's jaws snapped. "You're a liar!" he said; "Dakota wouldn't do
it!"

"Maybe I'm a liar," said Duncan, his face paling but his voice low and
quiet. He was not surprised that Doubler should exhibit emotion over the
charge that his friend was planning to murder him, yet he knew that the
suspicion once established in Doubler's mind would soon grow to the
stature of a conviction.

"Maybe I'm a liar," repeated Duncan. "But if you'll use your brain a
little you'll see that things look bad for you. Dakota's been here. Did he
tell you about Langford coming to see him? I reckon not," he added as he
caught Doubler's blank stare; "he'd likely not tell you about it. But I
reckon that if he was your friend he'd tell you. I reckon you told him
about Langford wanting your land--about him telling you he'd make things
hot for you?"

Doubler nodded silently, and Duncan continued. "Well," he said, with a
short laugh, "I've told you, and it's up to you. They were talking about
you, and if Dakota's your friend, as you're claiming him to be, he'd have
told you what they was talking about--if it wasn't what I say it was--him
knowing how Langford feels toward you. And they didn't only talk. Langford
wrote something on a paper and gave it to Dakota. I don't know what he
wrote, but it seemed to tickle Dakota a heap. Leastways, he done a heap of
laffing over it. Likely Langford's promised him a heap of dust to do the
job. Mebbe he's your friend, but if I was you I wouldn't give him no
chance to say I drawed first."

Doubler placed his rifle down and passed a hand slowly and hesitatingly
over his forehead. "I don't like to think that of Dakota," he said, faith
and suspicion battling for supremacy. "Dakota just left here; he acted a
heap friendly--as usual--mebbe more so."

"I reckon that when a man goes gunning for another man he don't advertise
a whole lot," observed Duncan insinuatingly.

"No," agreed Doubler, staring blankly into the distance where he had last
seen his supposed friend, "a man don't generally do a heap of advertisin'
when he's out lookin' for a man." He sat for a time staring straight
ahead, and then he suddenly looked up, his eyes filled with a savage
fierceness. "How do I know you ain't lyin' to me?" he demanded, glaring at
Duncan, his hands clenched in an