"But you'd think a drowning man would want help, no matter what kind of water he's in."
"It must be that Findlay's got him mixed up in his cattle-stealing from other ranches besides this," she said. "I don't see what else Uncle Hal would fear so desperately. Nothing would ruin or disgrace him quicker than the discovery of that. They hung a cattleman for stealing when I was a little girl, took him from his house at night and left him strung to a pine."
"It may be that, Alma, but I hardly think it is."
Barrett thought of the young Englishman who had come there on a mission similar to his own, and of the inscription on his tombstone as quoted by Fred Grubb. All through the illness from his wound this thought had obtruded. He had come to the belief that Nearing had shot the stranger as he had attempted Barrett's own life, perhaps in a burst of passion and fear; that Findlay had witnessed the act, and held it over the cattleman with oppression that increased day by day.
Alma turned to him, a great earnestness in her eyes.
"We can find out what this secret power of Findlay's is," she said. "Will you help me do it? When we know what it is, we can break his cinch on poor old Uncle Hal."
"I'll help you find out what we can, Alma," he told her, not with dramatic emphasis, just in simple earnestness that had a far more convincing effect of sincerity.
"Where to begin, where to turn, without pulling the house down on our heads," said she.
"Cattle Kate," said Barrett, in the same assured, calm tone.
