ssage to the man
conveying a significance that Haydon could not mistake. It meant that for
some reason, known only to himself, Harlan did not intend to tell what he
knew.

CHAPTER XVII

FORGING A LETTER

The impulse which had moved Harlan to send Red Linton to the T Down ranch
to enlist the services of some of his old friends had resulted from a
conviction that he could not depend upon those men of the Rancho Seco
outfit who had seemed to him, to be unfriendly to Stroud, the straw-boss.
He knew nothing about them, and their loyalty to Barbara Morgan might be
of a quality that would not endure through the sort of trouble that
seemed to be imminent.

The T Down men--those who would come--would stand with him no matter what
happened--they would do his will without question.

There was no doubt in Harlan's mind that John Haydon was the mysterious
"Chief"--the man who had sent into Lane Morgan's breast the bullet that
had ultimately killed him; and there was no doubt that some powerful,
secret force was at work in the country, and that the force was directing
its attention to the Rancho Seco and the defenseless girl who was at the
nominal head of it. For some reason the secret force had killed her
father, had isolated the ranch, had encompassed it with enemies, and was
working slowly and surely to enmesh the girl herself.

Harlan was convinced that one of the motives behind the subtle
aggressions of the men was a yearning for the gold that Morgan had
left--in fact the presence of Dolver and Laskar at Sentinel Rock--and
Morgan's word to him about the gold--provided sufficient evidence on that
score.

They had watched Morgan; they suspected he was taking gold to Pardo to
have it assayed, and they had killed him in the hope of finding something
on his person which would reveal to them where he had hidden the rest of
it.

One other motive was that of the eternal, ages-old passion of a man for
woman. Evidence of that passion had been revealed to Harlan at Lamo, by
the attack on Barbara by Deveny's hireling--Higgins; by the subtle
advances of John Haydon. It seemed to Harlan that all of these men had
been--and were--equally determined to possess the girl.

And yet back of it all--behind that which had been rendered visible by
the actions of the man and by Harlan's own deductions--was something
else--something stealthy and hidden; a secret threat of dire things to
come--a lingering promise of trickery.

Standi