e all
weaklings, thought Bill, unable to keep any sort of a secret from a
sympathetic male ear, especially when that ear belonged to as handsome a
young fellow as the Indian agent! Probably she would be telling the
agent everything on his next trip to the ranch. Bill had been watching,
but he had not seen the young upstart from the agency go past, and
neither had Bill's faithful clerk. But the visit might be made any day,
and Talpers's connection with the tragedy on the Dollar Sign road might
at almost any hour be falling into the possession of Lowell, whose
activity in running down bootleggers had long ago earned him Bill's
hatred.

Something would have to be done, without delay, to get the girl where
she would not be making a confidant of Lowell or any one else.
Scowlingly Bill thought over one plan after another, and rejected each
as impractical. Finally, by a process of elimination, he settled on the
only course that seemed practical. A broad fist, thudding into a
leather-like palm, indicated that the Talpers mind had been made up.
With his dark features expressing grim resolve, Bill threw a burden of
considerable size on his best pack-animal. This operation he conducted
alone in the barn, rejecting his clerk's proffer of assistance. Then he
saddled another horse, and, without telling his clerk anything
concerning his prospective whereabouts or the length of his trip,
started off across the prairie. He often made such excursions, and his
clerk had learned not to ask questions. Diplomacy in such matters was
partly what the clerk was paid for. A good fellow to work for was Bill
Talpers if no one got too curiously inclined. One or two clerks had been
disciplined on account of inquisitiveness, and they would not be as
beautiful after the Talpers methods had been applied, but they had
gained vastly in experience. Some day he would do even more for this
young Indian agent. Bill's cracked lips were stretched in a grin of
satisfaction at the very thought.

The trader traveled swiftly toward the reservation. He often boasted
that he got every ounce that was available in horseflesh. Traveling with
a pack-horse was little handicap to him. Horses instinctively feared
him. More than one he had driven to death without so much as touching
the straining animal with whip or spur. Nothing gave Bill such acute
satisfaction as the knowledge that he had roused fear in any creature.

With the sweating pack-animal close at the heels of