"Look at the letterhead--Vose-Mern Agency! Look and you'll see that it's addressed to Miss Patsy Jones, Adonia. Take it and read it! It's orders to her from the chief!" Latisan was plainly in no state of mind to read; he crumpled the letter in his hand and stuffed the paper into his trousers pocket. "Here's a telegram," continued the operative. "It's for her to go back to New York. It hasn't been enough for her to double-cross you; she's doing the same thing to the folks who have hired her. Nice kind of dame, eh? I don't know just what her game is, friend! But I'm coming across to you and tell you that the big idea is to keep you off the drive this season. Good money has been put up to turn the trick." In the midst of the whirling torches which made up his thoughts just then, Latisan was not able to give sane consideration to her zeal in urging him to duty; he was conscious only of the revelation of her character. Out of the city had come some kind of a design to undo him! The village was still agog with the news of his engagement; the news bureaus on legs had gone north to tattle the thing among all the camps; and she was a detective sent to beguile him! The faces of the bystanders were creasing into grins. "Ask her!" urged Crowley, relentlessly. "Or ask New York." Postponement of the truth was futile; denial was dangerous; a confession forced by an appeal to New York would discredit her motives; she had not formally severed her connection with the agency. She determined to meet this man of the woods on his own plane of honesty. "Come with me where we can talk privately," she urged; her demeanor told Latisan that she was not able to back the defiant stand he had taken with Crowley a moment before. "It's too late now," he objected, getting his emotions partly under control. "The thing has been advertised too much to have any privacy about it now. When they are left to guess things in this section the guessing is awful! I'm never afraid to face men with the truth. He has said you came here as a detective. Those men standing around heard him. What have you to say?" "Won't you let me talk to you alone?" "If I'm to stand up here before men after this, the facts will have to come out later; they may as well come out now." He spoke mildly, but his manner afforded her no opportunity for further appeal; he was a man of the square edge and he was acting according to the code of the Open Places. She put away womanly weakness as best she was able and continued with him on his own ground. "There is a plot to keep you away from your duty on the drive this season. You know as well as I do what interests furnished the money for such a purpose." "And you know about it, do you, because you are one of the detective gang?" "I have worked for the Vose-Mern agency." She could not deny the evidence of that letter which he had shoved deep down into his pocket. He had reminded her of it by whacking his hand against his thigh.