haired woman, who had been mother to her all those years, the pangs of disgrace; Barrett hardly believed she would go that far for Nearing.
The fact that Thomson, that lugubrious old fox, was mixed in the affair was another consideration to arouse the keenest anxiety. For weeks that rogue had been putting his head to Findlay's, two brands of iniquity which could produce no other result than an unholy fire. What his interest in the affairs of Nearing and Findlay could be, Barrett never had been able to even guess. That he was sharing the spoils of the Diamond Tail herds, at some angle of the steal, was certain; that he was an ally of Findlay seemed to go without a doubt.
Now they were waiting for this morose, conscienceless scoundrel at the ranch, with what sweat of cowardly fear, what cold hopelessness and sinking of the soul, no man could measure who had not felt the terror of on-creeping disgrace, the misery of overhanging shame.
How was he to prevent this sacrifice of youth and comeliness? Barrett asked of himself. Perhaps his interference might be resented. Alma might be the last one to countenance his interposition, in the great fear they must have roused in her, or the great compassion that had led her to such step. He stopped suddenly, shot by a thought that had not troubled him before.
"Did Alma send you?" he asked.
"No, I did not wait. My Teresa heard them through the window in the patio. I came to call the master of the house to guard his own."
Barrett spurred on again, settling down in the saddle, remembering Fred Grubb's admonition to sit tight
