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Updated: August 3, 2024
I heard you say a while ago, while I was standing at the window, looking in at your father giving a demonstration of his love for you, that you intended going over to Doubler's shack to nurse him. If you're still of the same mind, I'll take you over there." Sheila was at the door in an instant, but halted on the threshold to listen to Dakota's parting word to Langford.
Several nights on the gallery of the ranchhouse she had seen the two men sitting very close together, and on one or two occasions she had overheard scraps of conversation carried on between them in which Doubler's name was mentioned.
I am not allowing that I'm going to let anyone hang me for a thing I didn't do, and so if you're determined to get me without making sure that Doubler's going to have mourners immediately, it's a dead sure thing that some one's going to get hurt. I reckon that's all. I've given you fair warning, and after you get back to the edge of the clearing our friendship don't count any more."
While attending to Doubler's bandages, Sheila repeated the conversation she had had with Allen concerning the situation in which he had left Dakota, and instantly the nester's anxiety for his friend took precedence over any thoughts for his own immediate welfare. "There'll be trouble sure, now that Allen's left there," he said. "Dakota won't be a heap easy with them deputies."
There was a note of the old mockery in his voice, and it lingered long in Sheila's ears after she had watched him vanish into the mysterious shadows that surrounded the trail. Stiffling a sigh of regret and pity, she spoke to her pony, and the animal shuffled down the long slope, forded the river, and so brought her to the door of Doubler's cabin.
Sheila did not remain long at Doubler's cabin, for her mind was in a riot of rage and resentment against her father for his attitude toward Doubler, and she cut short her ride in the hope of being able to have a talk with him before he left the ranchhouse. But when she returned she was told by Duncan's sister that Langford had departed some hours before alone. He had not mentioned his destination.
Near the side of the cabin door, leaning against the wall, she saw a rifle. She started, not remembering to have seen it there before, but presently she found courage to take it up gingerly, turning it over and over in her hands. Some initials had been carved on the stock and she examined them, making them out finally as "B. D." Doubler's.
"I reckon you know a heap about Dakota, don't you?" came Duncan's voice, breaking into Doubler's reflections. "You know, for instance, that Dakota came here from Dakota or anyway, he says he came here from there. We'll say you know that. But what do you know about Langford? Didn't he tell you that he was going to 'get' you?" Duncan turned his back to Doubler and walked to his pony.
Doubler's memory went back to a conversation he had had with Sheila in which Dakota had been the subject under discussion. He remembered that she had shown a decided coldness, suggesting by her manner that she and Dakota were not on the best of terms. Could it be that she had merely pretended this coldness?
Sheila hesitated for a moment, and then, yielding to the entreaty in Doubler's eyes, she was at his side, pressing his hand. "Ride ma'am!" he told her, when she was ready to go, his cheeks flushed with excitement, his eyes bright.
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