“All right.  We’ll call it a week.  If he’s still here a week from to-day, there will be trouble.”

With that, he turned on his heel and left the room.  They heard his spurs trailing across the porch and jingling down the steps, after which they caught a momentary vision of him, dark and sinister, as his horse flashed past the window.

The ranger smiled, but rather seriously.  “The fat’s in the fire now, sure enough, ma’am.”

She turned anxiously upon him.  “Why did you tell him all that?  Why did you let him go away, believing you were here as a spy to trap him and his friends?”

“I let him have the truth.  Anyhow, I couldn’t have made good with a denial.  He had the evidence.  I can’t keep him from believing what he wants to.”

“He’ll tell all his friends.  He’ll exaggerate the facts and stir up sentiment against you.  He’ll say you came here as a detective, to get evidence against the Squaw Creek raiders.”  “Then he’ll tell the truth!”

She took it in slowly, with a gathering horror.  “The truth!” she repeated, almost under her breath.  “You don’t mean——­ You can’t mean——­ Are you here as a spy upon my friends?”

“I didn’t know they were your friends when I took the job.  If you’ll listen, I’ll explain.”

Words burst from her in gathering bitterness.

“What is there to explain, sir?  The facts cry to heaven.  I brought you into this valley, gave you the freedom of our home against my father’s first instinct.  I introduced you to my friends, and no doubt they told you much you wanted to know.  They are simple, honest folks, who don’t know a spy when they see one.  And I—­ fool that I am—­ I vouched for you.  More, I stood between you and the fate you deserved.  And, lastly, in my blind conceit, I have told you the names of the men in the Squaw Creek trouble.  If I had only known—­ and I had all the evidence, but I was so blind I would not see you were a snake in the grass.”

He put out a hand to stop her, and she drew back as if his touch were pollution.  From the other side of the room, she looked across at him in bitter scorn.

“I shall make arrangements to have you taken out of the valley at once, sir.”

“You needn’t take the trouble, Miss Arlie.  I’m not going out of the valley.  If you’ll have me taken to Alec Howard’s shack, which is where you brought me from, I’ll be under obligations to you.”

“Whatever you are, I’m not going to have your blood on my hands.  You’ve got to leave the valley.”

“I have to thank you for all your kindness to me.  If you’d extend it a trifle further and listen to what I’ve got to say, I’d be grateful.”

“I don’t care to hear your excuses.  Go quickly, sir, before you meet the end you deserve, and give up the poor men I have betrayed to you.”  She spoke in a choked voice, as if she could scarce breathe.

“If you’d only listen before you——­”