rything and I'll tell you everything. Now then: Are you engaged?"

They were standing under the low porch with the sunshine breaking
through the trees. She turned away her face and threw all of her
happiness into a laugh. "I won't tell."

"Oh, that's enough. You have told!" declared Whispering Smith. "I
knew--why, of course I knew--but I wanted to make you own up. Well,
here's the way things are. Sinclair has run us all over God's creation
for two days to give his pals a chance to break into Williams Cache to
get the Tower W money they left with Rebstock. For a fact, we have
ridden completely around Sleepy Cat and been down in the Spanish Sinks
since I saw you. He doesn't want to leave without the money, and
doesn't know it is in Kennedy's hands, and can't get into the Cache to
find out. Now the three--whoever the other two are--and Sinclair--are
trying to join forces somewhere up this valley, and Kennedy, Scott,
Wickwire, and I are after them; and every outlet is watched, and it
must all be over, my dear, before sunset to-night. Isn't that fine? I
mean to have the thing wound up somehow. Don't look worried."

"Do not--do not let him kill you," she cried with a sob.

"He will not kill me; don't be afraid."

"I _am_ afraid. Remember what your life is to all of us!"

"Then, of course, I've got to think of what it is to myself--being the
only one I've got. Sometimes I don't think much of it; but when I get
a welcome like this it sets me up. If I can once get out of this
accursed man-slaughtering business, Dicksie--How old are you?
Nineteen? Well, you've got the finest chap in all these mountains, and
George McCloud has the finest----"

With a bubbling laugh she shook her finger at him. "_Now_ you are
caught. Say the finest woman in these mountains if you dare! Say the
finest woman!"

"The finest woman of nineteen in all creation!" He swung with a laugh
into the saddle and waved his hat. She watched him ride down the road
and around the hill. When he reappeared she was still looking and he
was galloping along the lower road. A man rode out at the fork to meet
him and trotted with him over the bridge. Riding leisurely across the
creek, their broad hats bobbing unevenly in the sunshine, they spurred
swiftly past the grove of quaking asps, and in a moment were lost
beyond the trees.

CHAPTER XLIV

CRAWLING STONE WASH

Where the Little Crawling Stone River tears out of the Mission
Mountains it has left a g