hbors in the ordinary affairs of life. I'm sure I
love to be sociable to my Indian neighbors, and even to their agent.
Haven't I ridden away out here just to be sociable to you?"

"No dodging! I promised I wouldn't say anything more about the matters
that have been disturbing you so, but that promise was contingent on
your playing fair with me. I understand Bill Talpers has been causing
you some annoyance, and you haven't said a word to me about it."

Helen flashed a startled glance at Lowell. He was impassive as her
questioning eyes searched his face. Amazement and concern alternated in
her features. Then she took refuge in a blaze of anger.

"I don't know how you found out about Talpers!" she cried. "It is true
that he did cause a--a little annoyance, but that is all gone and
forgotten. But I am not going to forget your impertinence quite so
easily."

"My what?"

"Your impertinence?"

The girl was trembling with anger, or apprehension, and tapped her boot
nervously with her quirt as she spoke.

"You've been lecturing me about various things," she went on, "and now
you bring up Talpers as a sort of bugaboo to frighten me."

"You don't know Bill Talpers. If he has any sort of hold on you or on
Willis Morgan, he'll try to break you both. He is as innocent of
scruples as a lobo wolf."

"What hold could he possibly have on me--on us?"

She looked at Lowell defiantly as she asked the question, but he thought
he detected a note of concern in her voice.

"I didn't say he had any hold. I merely pointed out that if he were
given any opportunity he'd make life miserable for both of you."

Lowell did not add that Talpers, in a fit of rage and suspicion,
augmented by strong drink, had hinted that Helen knew something of the
murder. He had been inclined to believe that Talpers had merely been
"fighting wild" when he made the veiled accusation--that the trader,
being very evidently only partly recovered from a bout with his pet
bottles, had made the first counter-assertion that had come into his
head in the hope of provoking Lowell into a quarrel. But there was a
quality of terror in the girl's voice which struck Lowell with chilling
force. Something in his look must have caught Helen's attention, for her
nervousness increased.

"You have no right to pillory me so," she said rapidly. "You have been
perfectly impossible right along--that is, ever since this crime
happened. You've been spying here and there--"

"Spyi