"I don't think that I am interested in that," she said. "I presume that father is able to take care of his own affairs without any a.s.sistance from me."

Duncan's eyes lighted with interest. Her words showed that she was aware of Langford's differences with the nester. Probably her father had told her--taking her into his confidence while ignoring his manager. Perhaps he had even told her of his visit to Dakota; perhaps there had been more than one visit and Sheila had accompanied him. Undoubtedly, he told himself, Sheila's admiration for Dakota had resulted from not one, but many, meetings. He flushed at the thought, and was forced to look away from Sheila for fear that she might see the pa.s.sion that flamed in his eyes.

"You seen Dakota lately?" he questioned, after he had regained sufficient control of himself to be able to speak quietly.

"No." Sheila was flecking some dust from her skirts with her riding whip, and her manner was one of absolute lack of interest.

"Then you ain't been riding with your father?" said Duncan.

"Some." Sheila continued to brush the dust from her skirts. After answering Duncan's question, however, she realized that there had been a subtle undercurrent of meaning in his voice, and she turned and looked sharply at him.

"Why?" she demanded. "Do you mean that father has visited Dakota?"

"I reckon I'm meaning just that."

Sheila did not like the expression in Duncan's eyes, and her chin was raised a little as she turned from him and gave her attention to flecking the gra.s.s near her with the lash of her riding whip.

"Father attends to his own business," she said with some coldness, for she resented Duncan's apparent desire to interfere. "I told you that before.

What he does in a business way does not interest me."

"No?" said Duncan mockingly. "Well, he's made some sort of a deal with Dakota!" he snapped, aware of his lack of wisdom in telling her this, but unable to control his resentment over the slight which had been imposed on him by Langford, and by her own chilling manner, which seemed to emphasize the fact that he had been left outside their intimate councils.

"A deal?" said Sheila quickly, unable to control her interest.

For a moment he did not answer. He felt her gaze upon him, and he met it, smiling mysteriously. Under the sudden necessity of proving his statement, his thoughts centered upon the conclusion which had resulted from his suspicions--that Langford's visit to Dakota concerned Doubler.

Equivocation would have taken him safely away from the pitfall into which his rash words had almost plunged him, but he felt that any evasion now would only bring scorn into the eyes which he wished to see alight with something else. Besides, here was an opportunity to speak a derogatory word about his enemy, and he could not resist--could not throw it carelessly aside. There was a venomous note in his voice when he finally answered:

"The other day your father was speaking to me about gun-men. I told him that Dakota would do anything for money."

A slow red appeared in Sheila's cheeks, mounted to her temples, disappeared entirely and was succeeded by a paleness. She kept her gaze averted, and Duncan could not see her eyes--they were turned toward the slumberous plains that stretched away into the distance on the other side of the river. But Duncan knew that he had scored, and was not bothered over the possibility of there being little truth in his implied charge. He watched her, gloating over her, certain that at a stroke he had effectually eliminated Dakota as a rival.

Sheila turned suddenly to him. "How do you know that Dakota would do anything like that?"

Duncan smiled as he saw her lips, straight and white, and tightening coldly.

"How do I know?" he jeered. "How does a man know anything in this country?

By using his eyes, of course. I've used mine. I've watched Dakota for five years. I've known all along that he isn't on the square--that he has been running his branding iron on other folks' cattle. I've told you that he worked a crooked deal on me, and then sent Blanca over the divide when he thought there was a chance of Blanca giving the deal away. I am told that when he met Blanca in the Red Dog Blanca told him plainly that he didn't know anything about the calf deal. That shows how he treats his friends.

He'll do anything for money.

"The other day I saw your father at his cabin, talking to him. They had quite a confab. Your father has had trouble with Doubler--you know that.

He has threatened to run Doubler off the Two Forks. I heard that myself.

He wouldn't try to run Doubler off himself--that's too dangerous a business for him to undertake. Not wanting to take the chance himself he hires someone else. Who? Dakota's the only gunman around these parts.

Therefore, your dad goes to Dakota. He and Dakota signed a paper--I saw Dakota reading it. I've just put two and two together, and that's the result. I reckon I ain't far out of the way."

Sheila laughed as she might have laughed had someone told her that she herself had plotted to murder Doubler--a laugh full of scorn and mockery.

Yet in her eyes, which were wide with horror, and in her face, which was suddenly drawn and white, was proof that Duncan's words had hurt her mortally.

She was silent; she did not offer to defend Dakota, for in her thoughts still lingered a recollection of the scene of the shooting in Lazette. And when she considered her father's distant manner toward her and Ben Doubler's grave prediction of trouble, it seemed that perhaps Duncan was right. Yet in spite of the shooting of Blanca and the evil light which was now thrown on Dakota through Duncan's deductions, she felt confident that Dakota would not become a party to a plot in which the murder of a man was deliberately planned. He had wronged her and he had killed a man, but at the quicksand crossing that day--despite the rage which had been in her heart against him--she had studied him and had become convinced that behind his recklessness, back of the questionable impulses that seemed at times to move him, there lurked qualities which were wholly admirable, and which could be felt by anyone who came in contact with him. Certainly those qualities which she had seen had not been undiscovered by Duncan--and others.

She remembered now that on a former occasion the manager had practically admitted his fear of Dakota, and then there was his conduct on that day when she had asked him to return Dakota's pony. Duncan's manner then had seemed to indicate that he feared Dakota--at the least did not like him.

Ben Doubler had given her a different version of the trouble between Dakota and Duncan; how Duncan had accused Dakota of stealing the Double R calves, and how in the presence of Duncan's own men Dakota had forced him to apologize. Taken altogether, it seemed that Duncan's present suspicions were the result of his dislike, or fear, of Dakota. Convinced of this, her eyes flashed with contempt when she looked at the manager.

"I believe you are lying," she said coldly. "You don't like Dakota. But I have faith in him--in his manhood. I don't believe that any man who has the courage to force another man to apologize to him in the face of great odds, would, or could, be so entirely base as to plan to murder a poor, unoffending old man in cold blood. Perhaps you are not lying," she concluded with straight lips, "but the very least that can be said for you is that you have a lurid imagination!"

In Duncan's gleaming, shifting eyes, in the lips which were tensed over his teeth in a snarl, she could see the bitterness that was in his heart over the incident to which she had just referred.

"Wait," he said smiling evilly. "You'll know more about Dakota before long."

Sheila rose and walked to her pony, mounting the animal and riding slowly away from the river. She did not see the queer smile on Duncan's face as she rode, but looking back at the distance of a hundred yards, she saw that he did not intend to follow her. He was still sitting where she had left him, his back to her, his face turned toward the plains which spread away toward Dakota's cabin, twenty miles down the river.

CHAPTER XI

A PARTING AND A VISIT

The problem which filled Duncan's mind as he sat on the edge of the slope overlooking the river was a three-sided one. To reach a conclusion the emotions of fear, hatred, and jealousy would have to be considered in the light of their relative importance.

There was, for example, his fear of Dakota, which must be taken into account when he meditated any action prompted by his jealousy, and his fear of Dakota was a check on his desires, a damper which must control the heat of his emotions. He might hate Dakota, but his fear of him would prevent his taking any action which might expose his own life to risk. On the other hand, jealousy urged him to accept any risk; it kept telling him over and over that he was a fool to allow Dakota to live. But Duncan knew better than to attempt an open clash with Dakota; each time that he had looked into Dakota's eyes he had seen there something which told him plainer than words of his own inferiority--that he would have no chance in a man-to-man encounter with him. And his latest experience with Dakota had proved that.

However, Duncan's character would not permit him to concede defeat, and his revenge was not a thing to be considered lightly. Therefore, though he sat for a long time on the slope, meditating over his problem, in the end he smiled. It was not a good smile to see, for his eyes were alight with a crafty, designing gleam, and there was a cruel curve in the lines of his lips. When he finally mounted his pony and rode away from the slope he was whistling.

During the next few days he did not see much of Sheila, for he avoided the ranchhouse as much as possible. He rode out with Langford many times, and though he covertly questioned the Double R owner concerning the affair with Doubler he could gain no satisfying information. Langford's reticence further aggravated the pa.s.sions which rioted in his heart, and finally one afternoon when they rode up to the ranchhouse his curiosity could be held in check no longer, and he put the blunt question:

"What have you done about Doubler?"

Langford's shifting eyes rested for the fraction of a second on the face of his manager, and then the old, bland smile came into his own and he answered smoothly: "Nothing."

"I have been thinking," said Duncan carelessly, but with a sharp side glance at his employer, "that it wouldn't be a half bad idea to set a gunman on Doubler--a man like Dakota, for instance."

The manager saw Langford's lips straighten a little, and his eyes flashed with a sudden fire. The expression on Langford's face strengthened the conviction already in Duncan's mind concerning the motive of his employer's visit to Dakota.

"I don't think I care to have any dealings with Dakota," said Langford shortly.

Duncan's eyes blazed again. "I reckon if you'd go talk to him," he persisted, turning his head so that Langford could not see the suppressed rage in his eyes, "you might be able to make a deal with him."

"I don't wish to deal with him. I have decided not to bother Doubler at present. And I have no desire to talk with Dakota. Frankly, my dear Duncan, I don't like the man."

"You been in the habit of forming opinions of men you've never talked to?"

said Duncan. He could not keep the sneer out of his voice.

Langford noticed it and laughed softly.

"It is my recollection that a certain man of my acquaintance advised me at length of Dakota's shortcomings," he said significantly. "For me to talk to Dakota after that would be to consider this man's words valueless. I will have nothing to do with Dakota. That is," he added, "unless you have altered your opinion of him."

Duncan did not reply, and he said nothing more to Langford on the subject, but he had discovered that for some reason Langford had chosen to keep the knowledge of his visit to Dakota secret, and Duncan's suspicions that the visit concerned Doubler became a conviction. Filled with resentment over Langford's att.i.tude toward him, and with his mind definitely fixed upon the working out of his problem, Duncan decided to visit Doubler.