a
chair for her from the porch.

"If you'll be as brief as possible, Mr. Flatray. I've been in the desert
two days and want to change my clothes."

"I'll not detain you. It's about this gold robbery."

"Yes."

She could not take her eyes from him. Something told her that he knew her
secret, or part of it. Her heart was fluttering like a caged thrush.

"Shall we begin at the beginning?"

"If you like."

"Or in the middle, say."

"If only you'll begin anywhere," she said impatiently.

"How will this do for a beginning, then? 'One thousand dollars will be
paid by Thomas L. Morse for the arrest and conviction of each of the men
who were implicated in the robbery of the Fort Allison stage on April
twenty-seventh last.'"

She was shaken, there was no denying it. He could see the ebb of blood
from her cheeks, the sudden stiffening of the slender figure.

She did not speak until she had control of her voice. "Dear me! What has
all that to do with me?"

"A good deal, I'm afraid. You know how much, better than I do."

"Perhaps I'm stupid. You'll have to be a great deal clearer before I can
understand you."

"I've noticed that it's a lot easier to understand what you want to than
what you don't want to."

Sharply a thought smote her. "Have you seen Phil Norris lately?"

"No, I haven't. Do you think it likely that he would confess?"

"Confess?" she faltered.

"I see I'll have to start at the beginning, after all. It's pretty hard to
say just where that is. It might be when Morse got hold of your father's
claim, or another fellow might say it was when the Boone-Bellamy feud
began, and that is a mighty long time ago."

"The Boone-Bellamy feud," echoed the girl.

"Yes. The real name of our friend Norris is Dunc Boone."

"He's no friend of mine." She flamed it out with such intensity that he
was surprised.

"Glad to hear it. I can tell you, then, that he's a bad lot. He was driven
out of Arkansas after a suspected murder. It was a killing from ambush.
They couldn't quite hang it on him, but he lit a shuck to save his skin
from lynchers. At that time he was a boy. Couldn't have been more than
seventeen."

"Who did he kill?"

"One of the Bellamy faction. The real name of T. L. Morse is----"

"--Richard Bellamy."

"How do you know that?" he asked in surprise.

"I've known it since the first day I met him."

"Known that he was wanted for murder in Arkansas?"

"Yes."

"And you protected him?"

"I h