Wade went on, "if there is anything between her and
Mr. Dunne? Do you suppose he and Mr. Farwell are jealous of each other?
They were like two dogs with one bone."

Clyde yawned. "Oh, mercy, Kitty," she said wearily, "ask me something
easier. I wouldn't blame either of them. She seems to be a thoroughly
nice girl."

Kitty Wade on her way to her room nodded wisely. "You don't fool me a
little bit, Clyde," she said to herself. "This Sheila McCrae is
probably just as nice as you are, and you own up to it like a little
lady. But all the same you hate each other; and, what's more, you both
know it."

CHAPTER XVIII

Clyde lay stretched at length in sweet, odorous hay. There was no
reason why she should not have taken the hammock in the shade of the
veranda that morning, save that she wanted to be alone. Therefore she
had taken a book and wandered forth. Behind the corrals she had come
upon a haystack, cut halfway down and halfway across, and on impulse
she had climbed up a short ladder and lain down. Her hands clasped
behind her head, her book forgotten, she stared up into the blue sky,
and dreamed daydreams. And then she went to sleep.

She was aroused by the sound of hammering. Peeping over the edge of the
stack, she recognized Tom McHale. McHale was putting a strand of wire
around the stack, and as she looked he began to sing a ballad of the
old frontier. Clyde had never heard "Sam Bass," and she listened to
McHale's damaged tenor.

"Sam was born in Indianner, it was his native home,
And at the age of seventeen young Sam began to roam;
And first he went to Texas, a cowboy for to be--
He robs the stage at----"

He stopped abruptly, and Clyde saw two mounted men approaching. They
bore down on McHale, who lifted his coat from a rail, and put it on. To
Clyde's amazement the action revealed a worn leather holster strapped
to the inner side of the garment, and from it protruded the ivory butt
of a six-shooter. McHale was apparently unarmed; in reality a weapon
lay within instant reach of his hand.

The two horsemen were roughly dressed. Each wore a gun openly at his
belt. One was large, sandy-haired, gray-eyed. The other was dark,
quick, restless, shooting odd, darting glances from a pair of sinister
black eyes.

"Is your name Dunne?" asked the first roughly.

"Dunne?" queried McHale, as if the name were strange to him. "Did you
say Dunne, or Doane?"

"I said Dunne."

"Oh," McHale respo