"I'm likely to need all my friends soon, Dorothy," Wade answered soberly. "I came in to-day to see Race Moran. There's a big band of sheep on our upper range, and Jensen, who has charge of them, admitted to me this morning that Moran is behind him." "Goodness, more sheep! Wherever do they come from?" "I don't know where they come from, but they can't stay where they are unless I go out of business, that's certain." In a few words, he explained to her the significance of the movement, and told her of his talk with Moran. "I've no use for the man," he concluded, "and if it comes to a showdown between us, he need expect no sympathy. I've held back as long as I can. I understand better than he does what the crack of the first rifle will lead to." "You have not liked him since you found that he took that snapshot of me," she said whimsically. "I didn't mind, but I can't imagine what he wanted it for." Wade's face darkened. "It was a confounded impertinence, whatever he wanted with it. But my dislike of him goes farther back than that." "What are you going to do?" she asked, resting her chin in her hand, and looking him straight in the eyes, as she always did to those with whom she talked. "It largely depends on him. Santry--you know how hot-headed he is--would run the herders away by force and kill off the sheep. As a last resort, of course, we may have to do something like that, but I want to win this fight without open violence if we can. A faction war, in the end, would be likely to ruin us all." "You must be careful," the girl declared earnestly. "Moran is not going to be an easy man to handle. He seems to have plenty of money, and they say here in town that he stands in with the government; that he has some sort of 'pull.' He's clever, I think. He'll trick you if he can." "I'm sure of that, Dorothy, but we're not going to let him. If only...! Say, do you know something else that is being said in this town? Something that they're saying about me?" "Something nice?" her tone was archly inquiring. He leaned forward and lightly rested his hand on her knee, just as he might have done with a man friend, and she took as little notice of it. His fingers were trembling a little under the stress of the emotion he felt. "They're saying, those who don't like me, I guess, that I'm afraid of Moran and his crowd; afraid of a lot of sheep herders. No, of course, my friends don't believe it," he hastened to add when she started to interrupt. "But it's not doing me any good, especially now that public feeling is running so high." "But you mustn't mind what they say, Gordon. That's part of the courage your friends know that you have; to do what you feel to be right, no matter what is said."