h a strip of paper on his knee.

"More bad news?" he asked.

Grant made no answer, but passed the strip of paper across to him, and
Breckenridge's pulses throbbed fast with anger as he read: "It is quite
difficult to sit on both sides of the fence, and the boys have no more use
for you. Still, there was a time when you did what you could for us, and
that is why I am giving you good advice. Sit tight at Fremont, and don't
go out at nights."

"The consumed asses!" he said. "You see what he means? They have gone
after the herring Clavering drew across the trail."

The bronze grew darker in Larry's face, and his voice was hoarse.
"Yes--they figure the cattle-men have bought me over. Well, there were
points that would have drawn any man's suspicions--the packet I would not
give up to Chilton--and, as you mention, Miss Torrance's wallet. Still, it
hurts."

Breckenridge saw the veins swell up on his comrade's forehead and the
trembling of his hands. "Don't worry about them. They are beasts, old
man," he said.

Grant said nothing for at least a minute, and then clenched one lean brown
hand. "I felt it would come, and yet it has shaken most of the grit out of
me. I did what I could for them--it was not easy--and they have thrown me
over. That is hard to bear, but there's more. No man can tell, now there
is no one to hold them in, how far they will go."

Breckenridge's answer was to fling a cloth upon the table and lay out the
plates. Grant sat very still; his voice had been curiously even, but his
set face betrayed what he was feeling, and there was something in his eyes
that Breckenridge did not care to see. He also felt that there were
troubles too deep for any blundering attempt at sympathy, but the silence
grew oppressive, and by and by he turned to his companion again.

"We'll presume the fellow who wrote that means well," he said. "What does
his warning point to?"

Grant smiled bitterly. "An attempt upon my homestead or my life, and I
have given them already rather more than either is worth to me," he said.

Breckenridge was perfectly sensible that he was not shining in the role of
comforter; but he felt it would be something accomplished if he could keep
his comrade talking. He had discovered that verbal expression is
occasionally almost a necessity to the burdened mind, though Larry was not
greatly addicted to relief of that description.

"Of course, this campaign has cost you a good deal," he said.

"Proba