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Updated: June 16, 2025
Dakota himself was repairing a saddle in the shade of the cabin wall, and for all that Langford could see he was entirely unaware of his approach. He saw Dakota look up when he passed the corral gate, and when he reached a point about twenty feet distant he observed a faint smile on Dakota's face. "Howdy, stranger," came the latter's voice. "How are you, my friend?" greeted Langford easily.
"I reckon you're a liar," he said with cold emphasis. Duncan's gaze went to the pistol in Dakota's hand and his lips curled. He knew that he was perfectly safe so long as he made no hostile move, for in spite of his derogatory remarks about the man he was aware that he never used his weapons without provocation. Therefore he forced a smile. "You ain't running no Blanca deal on me," he said.
The first was that some one had told him of Dakota's complicity in the plan to murder him and that he refused to believe his friend capable of such depravity. The second was that he knew who had shot him; he also knew the man who had informed him of Dakota's duplicity though this knowledge would amount to very little unless he recovered enough to be able to supply the missing threads.
Certainly those qualities which she had seen had not been undiscovered by Duncan and others. She remembered now that on a former occasion the manager had practically admitted his fear of Dakota, and then there was his conduct on that day when she had asked him to return Dakota's pony. Duncan's manner then had seemed to indicate that he feared Dakota at the least did not like him.
She struggled in his grasp, trying to fight him off, and then she drifted into oblivion. When Sheila recovered consciousness she was in Dakota's cabin in the bunk in which she had lain on another night in the yesterday of her life in this country. She recognized it instantly.
She felt a hand on her forehead, a damp cloth, and she opened her eyes to gaze fairly into Dakota's. "Don't, please," she said, shrinking from him. It occurred to her that she had uttered the same words to him before, and, closing her eyes for a moment, she remembered.
"You see," he said, "that I am not particularly desirous of being instrumental in causing Doubler's death you have misjudged me." Dakota's eyes met his with a glance of perfect knowledge. His smile possessed a subtly mocking quality which was slightly disconcerting to Langford. "I reckon you'll be an angel give you time," he said. "I am accepting that proposition, though," he added.
There was a quality in his voice which hinted at satisfaction; a peculiar emphasis on the word "fortunate" which caused Sheila to wonder why he should consider it fortunate that Duncan had seen the murder done, when it would have been much better for the success of Dakota's and her father's scheme if there had been no witness to it at all.
She did not see the queer smile on Duncan's face as she rode, but looking back at the distance of a hundred yards, she saw that he did not intend to follow her. He was still sitting where she had left him, his back to her, his face turned toward the plains which spread away toward Dakota's cabin, twenty miles down the river.
After breakfast on the following morning she was standing near the windmill, watching the long arms travel lazily in their wide circles, when she saw Duncan riding away from the ranchhouse, leading Dakota's pony.
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