"They said there was another man with the rustlers, but he got away. They said it was a friend of mine. Oh--oh--I won't believe it of him!" she ended passionately. Allen swore to himself. Without being told, he knew whom Spur Treadwell had said the third man was. Spur Treadwell was both deep and thorough. Allen had come to Little Deadman's to help clear a boy's name, and he now believed he had stumbled into a dark conspiracy that had a deeper motive than just the removal of a rival. "That's right, ma'am, don't believe it of him, 'cause it ain't true," Allen said earnestly. The girl looked at him with big, round eyes. Something of hope, of fear, sprang into them. "What do you mean? Do you know him?" Allen saw that he had stepped out of character. In order to gain time for thought, he busied himself with his food for a moment. After he had swallowed his meat, he looked up at her and grinned. "I don't mean nothin'. Only the way yuh spoke, I sorta thought yuh liked him, an' it ain't right to believe nothin' of nobody unless yuh give them a chance to tell their side," he blundered. "But--the rustlers were blottin' the Double R to Double B, an' that's his brand. He--he---- Some one said he killed a man an' he had to hide out. Spur said he came back an' tried rustlin' to get even." "Did yuh see your dad after he was shot?" Allen asked quickly, as thought materialized in his brain. "No." "Then he didn't live to say nothin'?" "Yeh, he talked to Spur an' wrote a--a----" She broke off, as a heavy tread sounded in the next room. A moment later, the door opened and Spur Treadwell entered. Allen noticed he was so tall that he had to stoop as he came through the door. He glanced swiftly at Allen and then to the girl. His eyes were penetrating, inquiring, and Allen saw a glint of suspicion in them. "If yuh're goin' to work for me, yuh have to hustle down your grub faster than that," he said with a touch of harshness in his voice. "It was my fault, an' it is _my_ ranch, an' if I want to talk to one of _my_ men, I will." The girl was quick to spring to Allen's defense. "Let's not go into that again, Dot. It's your ranch all right, but don't forget I'm your guardian until yuh are of age an' that I do the hirin' an' firin'," Spur said tolerantly with the touch of authority in his voice that one uses to an unruly child. The girl flushed. Allen rose to his feet and picked up his hat. A moment before, he had been irritated that Spur Treadwell had entered before the girl had time to tell him what her father wrote before he died, but he now felt that it made no difference, for he was certain that he knew what John Reed had written, or at least what Spur Treadwell had said was written. "Well, anyway, it was my fault the boy stayed here to talk," Dot said after a pause. "Talk?" Again Spur glanced from the girl to Allen. "He was tellin' me about his home," she said. She cast a quick glance at Allen as if to beg him not to contradict her lie.