He nodded, still at sea, but with a light beginning to dawn in his little eyes.

“I’m only a girl, Joe.  I have all the weakness of other girls.  I don’t want to be locked up in a cage just because I—­love one man!”

The avowal made Joe blink.  It was the second time that day that he had been placed in an astonishing scene.  But some of his old cunning remained to him.

“Nell,” he said suddenly, rising from his chair and going to her.  “What are you trying to do to me?  Pull the wool over my eyes?”

It was too much for Nelly Lebrun.  She knew that she could not face him without betraying her guilt and therefore she did not attempt it.  She whirled and flung herself on her bed, face down, and began to sob violently, suppressing the sounds.  And so she waited.

Presently a hand touched her shoulder lightly.

“Go away,” cried Nelly in a choked voice.  “I hate you, Joe Rix.  You’re like all the rest!”

His knee struck the floor with a soft thud.

“Come on, Nell.  Don’t be hard on me.  I thought you were stringing me a little.  But if you’re playing straight, tell me what you want?”

At that she bounced upright on the bed, and before he could rise she caught him by both shoulders.

“I want Donnegan,” she said fiercely.

“What?”

“I want him dead!”

Joe Rix gasped.

“Here’s the cause of all my trouble.  Just because I flirted with him once or twice, Nick thought I was in earnest and now he’s sulking.  And Donnegan puts on airs and acts as if I belonged to him.  I hate him, Joe.  And if he’s gone Nick will come back to me.  He’ll come back to me, Joe; and I want him so!”

She found that Joe Rix was staring straight into her eyes, striving to probe her soul to its depths, and by a great effort she was enabled to meet that gaze.  Finally the fat little man rose slowly to his feet.  Her hands trailed from his shoulders as he stood up and fell helplessly upon her lap.

“Well, I’ll be hanged, Nell!” exclaimed Joe Rix.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not acting a part?  No, I can see you mean it.  But what a cold-blooded little—­” He checked himself.  His face was suddenly jubilant.  “Then we’ve got him, Nell.  We’ve got him if you’re with us.  We had him anyway, but we’ll make sure of him if you’re with us.  Look at this!  You saw me put a paper in my pocket when I opened the door of my room?  Here it is!”

He displayed before the astonished eyes of Nelly Lebrun a paper covered with an exact duplicate of her own swift, dainty script.  And she read: 

Nick is terribly angry and is making trouble.  I have to get away.  It isn’t safe for me to stay here.  Will you help me?  Will you meet me at the shack by Donnell’s ford tomorrow morning at ten o’clock?

“But I didn’t write it,” cried Nelly Lebrun, bewildered.

“Nelly,” Joe Rix chuckled, flushing with pleasure, “you didn’t.  It was me.  I kind of had an idea that you wanted to get rid of this Donnegan, and I was going to do it for you and then surprise you with the good news.”