"It is going to be disputed," she broke in hurriedly. "Mr. Blackwell has talked about it--before me, just as if I didn't count. Telegrams have been passing back and forth, and the Lawrenceburg owners in the East have given Mr. Blackwell full authority to take such steps as he may think best. I--that is, Daddy and I--have known Mr. Barrett for a long time, and I couldn't let this thing happen without giving him just a little warning. Some kind of legal proceedings have already been begun, and you are to be driven off--to-morrow." "Oh, I guess not; not so suddenly as all that," I ventured to say. There were many questions to come crowding in, but I could scarcely expect the assayer's daughter to answer them. Her father had plainly declared his belief that we were stealing Lawrenceburg ore and planning a blackmailing scheme: had he told Blackwell? The query practically answered itself. If Blackwell had been told that we were salting our claim with ore stolen from the Lawrenceburg sheds, the "legal proceedings" would have been a simple arrest-warrant and a search for stolen property. Had Everton told his daughter? This was blankly incredible. If he had told her that we were thieves, she would never have gone so far aside from her childhood hatred of duplicity and wrong-doing as to come and warn us. "I was afraid you might not believe me," she said, with a little catch in her voice; and then: "I can't blame you; after what you have suf--after all that has happened." If I hadn't been completely lost in admiration for her keen sense of justice, and more or less bewildered by her beauty and her nearness, I might have caught the significance of what she was trying to say. But I didn't. "No; I didn't mean that," I denied warmly. "I do believe every word you have said. No one who knows you could disbelieve you for a moment." "But you don't know me," she put in quickly. I saw how near I had come to self-betrayal and tried to fend my little life-raft off the rocks. "You will say that we have met only once before to-night, and then only casually. Will you permit a comparative stranger to say that that was enough? Your soul looks out through your eyes, Miss Everton, and it is an exceedingly honest soul. I know you must have strong reasons for coming to tell us what Blackwell is doing; and if I didn't quite understand the motive at first--with you your father's daughter, you know, and your father in the service of the----" "I know," she interrupted. "But you lose sight of the larger things. If you have been telling me the truth about your ownership of this claim, a great wrong is going to be done. I couldn't stand aside and let it be done, could I?" Something in her manner of saying this recalled most vividly the little girl of the long ago, hot-hearted in her indignation against injustice of every sort.