"That's where you're in danger of going to the other extreme," the agent replied. "You'll remember that I told you human companionship is as necessary as bacon and flour and salt in this country. You're more dependent on the people about you here, even if your nearest neighbor is five or ten miles away, than you would be in any apartment building in a big city. You might live and die there, and no one would be the wiser. Also you might get along tolerably well, while living alone. But you can't do it out here and keep a normal mental grip on life." "My, what a lecture!" laughed the girl, though there was no merriment in her voice. "But it hardly applies to me, for the reason that I always depend upon my neighbors in the ordinary affairs of life. I'm sure I love to be sociable to my Indian neighbors, and even to their agent. Haven't I ridden away out here just to be sociable to you?" "No dodging! I promised I wouldn't say anything more about the matters that have been disturbing you so, but that promise was contingent on your playing fair with me. I understand Bill Talpers has been causing you some annoyance, and you haven't said a word to me about it." Helen flashed a startled glance at Lowell. He was impassive as her questioning eyes searched his face. Amazement and concern alternated in her features. Then she took refuge in a blaze of anger. "I don't know how you found out about Talpers!" she cried. "It is true that he did cause a--a little annoyance, but that is all gone and forgotten. But I am not going to forget your impertinence quite so easily." "My what?" "Your impertinence?" The girl was trembling with anger, or apprehension, and tapped her boot nervously with her quirt as she spoke. "You've been lecturing me about various things," she went on, "and now you bring up Talpers as a sort of bugaboo to frighten me." "You don't know Bill Talpers. If he has any sort of hold on you or on Willis Morgan, he'll try to break you both. He is as innocent of scruples as a lobo wolf." "What hold could he possibly have on me--on us?" She looked at Lowell defiantly as she asked the question, but he thought he detected a note of concern in her voice. "I didn't say he had any hold. I merely pointed out that if he were given any opportunity he'd make life miserable for both of you." Lowell did not add that Talpers, in a fit of rage and suspicion, augmented by strong drink, had hinted that Helen knew something of the murder. He had been inclined to believe that Talpers had merely been "fighting wild" when he made the veiled accusation--that the trader, being very evidently only partly recovered from a bout with his pet bottles, had made the first counter-assertion that had come into his head in the hope of provoking Lowell into a quarrel. But there was a quality of terror in the girl's voice which struck Lowell with chilling force. Something in his look must have caught Helen's attention, for her nervousness increased.