trying to get up the courage to ask you. Should you dare to go with
her to Sinclair's ranch if she decides to go to him?"

"Certainly I should dare."

"After all you know?"

"After all I know--why not?"

"Then in case she does go and you go with her, you will know nothing
whatever about anything, of course, unless you get the story from her.
What I fear is that which possibly may come of their interview. He may
try to kill her--don't be frightened. He will not succeed if you can
only make sure he doesn't lead her away on horseback from the
ranch-house or get her alone in a room. She has few friends. I respect
and honor her because she and I grew up as children together in the
same little town in Wisconsin. I know her folks, all of them, and I've
promised them--you know--to have a kind of care of her."

"I think I know."

He looked self-conscious even at her tone of understanding. "I need
not try to deceive you; your instinct would be poor if it did not tell
you more than I ought to. He came along and turned her head. You need
fear nothing for yourself in going with her, and nothing for her if
you can cover just those two points--can you remember? Not to let her
go away with him on horseback, and not to leave her where she will be
alone with him in the house?"

"I can and will. I think as much of Marion as you do. I am proud to be
able to do something for you. How little I have known you! I thought
you were everything I didn't want to know."

"It's nothing," he returned easily, "except that Sinclair has stirred
up your cousin and the ranchers as well as the Williams Cache gang,
and that makes talk about me. I have to do what I can to make this a
peaceable country to live in. The railroad wants decent people here
and doesn't want the other kind, and it falls on me, unfortunately, to
keep the other kind moving. I don't like it, but we can none of us do
quite what we please in making a living. Let me tell you this"--he
turned to fix his eyes seriously on hers: "Believe anything you hear
of me except that I have ever taken human life willingly or save in
discharge of my duty. But this kind of work makes my own life an
uncertainty, as you can see. I do almost literally carry my life in my
hand, for if my hand is not quicker every time than a man's eye, I am
done for then and there."

"It is dreadful to think of."

"Not exactly that, but it is something I can't afford to forget."

"What would become of the live