"There you are," jeered Quinnion, with a sullen sort of defiance. "You swat me over the head while I ain't lookin' an' then bring me in here where they're all your friends. If I drop you I get all mussed up with their bullets. No, thanks." "For the last time," said Lee, and his low voice was ominous, "I tell you what to do. If you don't do it, I'll kill you just the same. You've got your chance. Count ten seconds, Sandy." "One," said Sandy, watching the clock on the wall, "two, three, four, five, six, seven----" "Curse you!" cried Quinnion then, a look of fear at last in his eyes. "I'll get you for this some day, Bud Lee. Now you've got me----" "Keep on counting, Sandy," commanded Lee. "Eight," said Sandy, "nine----" "I lied!" snapped Quinnion. "An' I'm leavin' town for a while." And lurching as he walked, he made his way out of the room, his eyes on the floor, his face a burning red. "Carson and I are riding back to the ranch as soon as our horses rest up and get some grain," said Lee, his fingers slowly rolling a brown cigarette. "We'll mosey out now, see Quinnion on his way and drop back to make up a little game of draw for a couple of hours. Strike you about right, Billy? And you, Watson? And you, Parker?" They listened to him, took the cue from him, and allowed what lay between him and Chris Quinnion to lie in silence. But there was not a man there but in his own fashion was saying to himself: "It's a good beginning. But where's the end going to be?" XXI BURNING MEMORY As June had slipped by, so did July and August. On Blue Lake ranch life flowed smoothly. Men were too busy with each day's work to sit into the nights prophesying trouble ahead. And in truth it seemed that if Bayne Trevors had ever actively opposed the success of the Sanford venture he had by now accepted the role of inactivity forced upon him by circumstance. He was with the Western Lumber Company, as director and district superintendent, seemingly giving all his dynamic force to the legitimate affairs of the company. But there were those who placed no faith in the obvious. Bud Lee kept in touch with Rocky Bend and learned that Quinnion had not come back; that no one knew where he had gone. Carson's man, Shorty, was sought by Emmet Sawyer and his disappearance was like that of a pricked bubble; it seemed that Shorty had no actual physical existence or that, if he had, he had taken it into some other corner of the world. Quinnion's friends had also gone from Rocky Bend, like Quinnion leaving behind them no sign to show where they had gone.