"But you can't make her respectable," said Joe. "I'm not going to let her leave with you, or go to you. If she wants to go after Isom comes back, then let her. But not before. Now, you'd better go on away, Morgan, before I lose my temper. I was mad when I started after you, but I've cooled down. Don't roil me up again. Go on your way, and leave that woman alone." "Joe, you're a man in everything but sense," said Morgan, not unkindly, "and I reckon if you and I was to clinch we'd raise a purty big dust and muss things around a right smart. And I don't know who'd come out on top at the finish, neither. So I don't want to have any trouble with you. All I ask of you is step to one side and leave us two alone in what we've started to do and got all planned to carry out. Go to bed tonight and go to sleep. You're not supposed to know that anything's due to happen, and if you sleep sound you'll find a twenty-dollar bill under your hat in the morning." The suggestion brought a blush to Joe's face. He set his lips as if fighting down hot words before he spoke. "If I have to tie her I'll do it," said Joe earnestly. "She shan't leave. And if I have to take down that old gun from the kitchen wall to keep you away from here till Isom comes home, I'll take it down. You can come to the gate tonight if you want to, but if you do----" Joe looked him straight in the eyes. Morgan's face lost its color. He turned as if to see that his horse was still standing, and stood that way a little while. "I guess I'll drive on off, Joe," said Morgan with a sigh, as if he had reached the conclusion after a long consideration. "All right," said Joe. "No hard feelin's left behind me?" facing Joe again with his old, self-assured smile. He offered his hand, but Joe did not take it. "As long as you never come back," said Joe. Morgan walked to the fence, his head bent, thoughtfully. Joe followed, as if to satisfy himself that the wily agent was not going to work some subterfuge, having small faith in his promise to leave, much less in the probability that he would stay away. Joe stood at the fence, looking after Morgan, long after the dust of his wheels had settled again to the road. At last he went back to the place where he had dropped his scythe, and cut a swath straight through to the tree where Ollie's bonnet had hung. And there he mowed the trampled clover, and obliterated her footprints with his own. The weight of his discovery was like some dead thing on his breast. He felt that Ollie had fallen from the high heaven of his regard, never to mount to her place again. But Isom did not know of this bitter thing, this shameful shadow at his door. As far as it rested with him to hold the secret in his heart, poison though it was to him, Isom should never know. CHAPTER VI BLOOD