"Joe Rix and the Pedlar? I would not stack ten like them against you!" "Then it is someone else." "I haven't said so. Of course there's no one." She shook her rein again, but Donnegan sat still in his saddle and looked fixedly at her. "That's why you brought me out here," he announced. "Oh, Nelly Lebrun, what's behind your mind? Who is it? By heaven, it's this Lord Nick!" "Mr. Donnegan, you're letting your imagination run wild." "It's gone straight to the point. But I'm not angry. I think I may get back in time." He turned his horse, and the girl swung hers beside him and caught his arm. "Don't go!" she pleaded. "You're right; it's Nick, and it's suicide to face him!" The face of Donnegan set cruelly. "The main obstacle," he said. "Come and watch me handle it!" But she dropped her head and buried her face in her hands, and, sitting there for a long time, she heard his careless whistling blow back to her as he galloped toward The Corner. 31 If Nelly Lebrun had consigned him mentally to the worms, that thought made not the slightest impression upon Donnegan. A chance for action was opening before him, and above all a chance of action in the eye of Lou Macon; and he welcomed with open arms the thought that he would have an opportunity to strike for her, and keep Landis with her. He went arrowy straight and arrowy fast to the cabin on the hill, and he found ample evidence that it had become a center of attention in The Corner. There was a scattering of people in the distance, apparently loitering with no particular purpose, but undoubtedly because they awaited an explosion of some sort. He went by a group at which the chestnut shied, and as Donnegan straightened out the horse again he caught a look of both interest and pity on the faces of the men. Did they give him up so soon as it was known that Lord Nick had entered the lists against him? Had all his display in The Corner gone for nothing as against the repute of this terrible mystery man? His vanity made him set his teeth again. Dismounting before the cabin of the colonel, he found that worthy in his invalid chair, enjoying a sun bath in front of his house. But there was no sign of Lord Nick--no sign of Lou. A grim fear came to Donnegan that he might have to attack Nick in his own stronghold, for Jack Landis might already have been taken away to the Lebrun house. So he went straight to the colonel, and when he came close he saw that the fat man was apparently in the grip of a chill. He had gathered a vast blanket about his shoulders and kept drawing it tighter; beneath his eyes, which looked down to the ground, there were violet shadows. "I've lost," said Donnegan through his teeth. "Lord Nick has been here?" The invalid lifted his eyes, and Donnegan saw a terrible thing--that the nerve of the fat man had been crushed. The folds of his face quivered as he answered huskily: "He has been here!" "And Landis is gone?" "No." "Not gone? Then--"