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Excel 2010 The Missing Manual 1st Edition Matthew
Macdonald Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Matthew MacDonald
ISBN(s): 9781449382353, 1449382355
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 12.21 MB
Year: 2010
Language: english
 Excel 2010
THE MISSING MANUAL

The book that

should have been
in the box®
 Excel 2010

Matthew MacDonald

Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo

Excel 2010: The Missing Manual
Matthew MacDonald

Copyright © 2010 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North,
Sebastopol, CA 95472.
O’Reilly Media books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use.
Online editions are also available for most titles: http://my.safaribooksonline.com. For more
information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or corporate@
oreilly.com.

June 2010: First Edition.

The Missing Manual is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. The Missing Manual logo,
and “The book that should have been in the box” are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Many
of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed
as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and O’Reilly Media is aware of a
trademark claim, the designations are capitalized.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information
contained in it.

This book uses a durable and flexible lay-flat binding.

ISBN: 9781449382353
[CS]
Table of Contents

The Missing Credits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Introduction.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Part One: Worksheet Basics

Chapter 1: Creating Your First Spreadsheet.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Creating a Basic Worksheet.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Starting a New Workbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Adding the Column Titles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Adding Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Editing Data.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Moving Around the Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Shortcut Keys.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Go To Feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
A Tour of the Excel Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The Tabs of the Ribbon.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
The Formula Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
The Status Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Going Backstage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Excel Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Saving Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
The Excel File Format.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Sharing Your Spreadsheet with Excel 2007. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Saving Your Spreadsheet for Excel 2003.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Saving a Spreadsheet in Other Formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Saving Your Spreadsheet As a PDF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Saving Your Spreadsheet As an HTML File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Saving Your Spreadsheet with a Password. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Disaster Recovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

v
 Opening Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Opening Recent Documents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Protected View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Opening Files—with a Twist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Working with Multiple Open Spreadsheets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Chapter 2: Adding Information to Worksheets.. . . . . . . . . . . 63

Adding Different Types of Data.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
How Excel Identifies Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
How Excel Identifies Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
How Excel Identifies Dates and Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Regional Dating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Handy Timesavers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
AutoComplete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
AutoCorrect.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
AutoFill. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
AutoFit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Dealing with Change: Undo, Redo, and AutoRecover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Undo and Redo.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
AutoRecover. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Spell Check. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Spell Checking Options.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Adding Hyperlinks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Creating a Link to a Web Page or Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Creating a Link to a Worksheet Location. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Chapter 3: Moving Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Selecting Cells.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Moving Cells Around. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Adding and Moving Columns or Rows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Chapter 4: Managing Worksheets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Worksheets and Workbooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Adding and Removing Worksheets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Hiding Worksheets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Naming and Rearranging Worksheets.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Moving Worksheets from One Workbook to Another.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Grouping Worksheets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Find and Replace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
The Basic Find. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Find All. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
More Advanced Searches. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Finding Formatted Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Finding and Replacing Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

vi table of contents
Chapter 5: Formatting Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Formatting Cell Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Changing the Cell Value Format. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Formatting Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Formatting Dates and Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Special Formats for Special Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Custom Formats. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Formatting Cell Appearance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Alignment and Orientation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Fonts and Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Borders and Fills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Drawing Borders by Hand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Chapter 6: Smart Formatting Tricks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

The Format Painter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Styles and Themes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Custom Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Modifying Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Transferring Styles Between Workbooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
Themes: A Package of Styles.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Modifying Themes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Conditional Formatting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
The Basics of Conditional Formatting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Highlighting Specific Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Using Multiple Rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Chapter 7: Viewing and Printing Worksheets. . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Controlling Your View.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Zooming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Viewing Distant Parts of a Spreadsheet at Once.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Freezing Columns or Rows.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Hiding Data.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Saving View Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Viewing Multiple Workbooks at Once. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Printing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
How to Print an Excel File. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Page Layout View: A Better Print Preview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Creating Headers and Footers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Controlling Pagination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Page Breaks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Scaling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Page Break Preview: A Bird’s-Eye View of Your Worksheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

table of contents vii

 Part Two: Formulas and Functions
Chapter 8: Building Basic Formulas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Creating a Basic Formula. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Excel’s Order of Operations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Cell References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
How Excel Formats Cells That Contain Cell References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Using a Function in a Formula. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Using Cell References with a Function.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Using Cell Ranges with a Function.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Excel Compatibility Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Formula Errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Logical Operators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Formula Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Point-and-Click Formula Creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Point-and-Click Formula Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
The Formulas Tab. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Using the Insert Function Button.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Copying Formulas.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Absolute Cell References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Partially Fixed References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Referring to Other Worksheets.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
Referring to Other Workbooks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Chapter 9: Math and Statistical Functions.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Rounding Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
ROUND(), ROUNDDOWN(), ROUNDUP(): Rounding Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . 264
MROUND(), CEILING(), and FLOOR(): More Rounding Functions. . . . . . . . . . . 265
INT() and TRUNC(): Chopping Off Non-Whole Numbers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
EVEN() and ODD(): Rounding Up to Even or Odd Values.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
Groups of Numbers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
SUM(): Summing Up Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
COUNT(), COUNTA(), and COUNTBLANK(): Counting Items in a List. . . . . . . . . 269
MAX() and MIN(): Finding Maximum and Minimum Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
LARGE(), SMALL(), and RANK(): Ranking Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
AVERAGE() and MEDIAN(): Finding Average or Median Values. . . . . . . . . . . . 274
PERCENTILE() and PERCENTRANK(): Advanced Ranking Functions. . . . . . . . . . 275
FREQUENCY(): Putting Numbers into Grouped Ranges.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
MODE(): Finding Numbers That Frequently Occur in a List.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
General Math Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
PRODUCT(), FACT(), POWER(), and SQRT(): Products, Factorials,
Powers, and Square Roots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
QUOTIENT() and MOD(): Higher Division.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
ABS() and SIGN(): Absolute Value and Determining a Number’s Sign. . . . . . . . . 281
RAND() and RANDBETWEEN(): Generating Random Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . 282

viii table of contents

 GCD() and LCM(): Greatest and Least Common Denominator.. . . . . . . . . . . . 284
COMBIN() and PERMUT(): Figuring Combinations and Permutations. . . . . . . . . 285
Trigonometry and Advanced Math. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Advanced Statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Chapter 10: Financial Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

The World of Finance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Financial Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
FV(): Future Value. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
PV(): Present Value.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
PMT(), PPMT(), and IPMT(): Calculating the Number of Payments
You Need to Make. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
NPER(): Figuring Out How Much Time You’ll Need to Pay Off
a Loan or Meet an Investment Target. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
RATE(): Figuring the Interest Rate You Need to Achieve Future Value. . . . . . . . . 305
NPV() and IRR(): Net Present Value and Internal Rate of Return. . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Depreciation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Other Financial Functions.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Chapter 11: Manipulating Dates, Times, and Text. . . . . . . . . . 315

Manipulating Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
CONCATENATE(): Joining Strings of Text Together. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
LEFT(), MID(), and RIGHT(): Copying Portions of a Text String. . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
LEN(), FIND(), and SEARCH(): Counting Characters in a String. . . . . . . . . . . . 317
UPPER(), LOWER(), and PROPER(): Changing Capitalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
TRIM() and CLEAN(): Removing Unwanted Spaces and Non-Printing Characters. . . 320
SUBSTITUTE(): Replacing One Sequence of Characters with Another. . . . . . . . . 320
TEXT(), VALUE(), FIXED(), and DOLLAR(): Converting Text to Numbers
and Vice Versa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Other Text Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
Manipulating Dates and Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Math with Dates and Times.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Using Dates and Times with Ordinary Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Date and Time Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
TODAY() and NOW(): Inserting the Current Date and Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
DATE() and TIME(): Dates and Times in Calculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
DAY(), MONTH(), and YEAR(): More Date Calculations.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
HOUR(), MINUTE(), SECOND(): More Time Calculations.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
WEEKDAY(): Determining the Day of the Week. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
DATEDIF(): Calculating the Difference Between Dates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
DATEVALUE() and TIMEVALUE(): Converting Dates and Times
into Serial Numbers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
DAYS360(): Finding Out the Number of Days Between Two Dates. . . . . . . . . . . 335
EDATE(): Calculating Future Dates.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
YEARFRAC(): Calculating the Percentage of a Year Between Two Dates. . . . . . . . 336
EOMONTH(): Finding the Last Day of Any Month.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

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 NETWORKDAYS(): Counting the Number of Business Days. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
WORKDAY(): Figuring Out When Days Will Fall in the Future. . . . . . . . . . . . . 338
WEEKNUM(): Figuring Out in Which Week a Date Falls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Chapter 12: Lookup, Reference, and Information Functions.. . . 339

The Basic Lookup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
VLOOKUP(): Vertical Lookups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
HLOOKUP(): Horizontal Lookups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Advanced Lookups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
MATCH(): Finding the Position of Items in a Range. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
INDEX(): Retrieving the Value from a Cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Performing a “Left Lookup”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Performing a Double Lookup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
OFFSET(): Shifting Cell References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
Other Reference and Lookup Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
INDIRECT() and ADDRESS(): Working with Cell References Stored
As Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
TRANSPOSE(): Changing Rows into Columns and Vice Versa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
The HYPERLINK() Function: Creating a Dynamic Link. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Information Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
The “IS” Functions: Checking the Value Inside a Cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
TYPE() and ERROR.TYPE(): Finding a Value’s Data Type or Error Type. . . . . . . . . 357
INFO() and CELL(): Gathering Info About Your Computer
and Your Worksheet’s Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Tutorial: Generating Invoices from a Product Catalog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Chapter 13: Advanced Formula Writing and Troubleshooting.. . 363

Conditions in Formulas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
IF(): Building Conditional Formulas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
COUNTIF(): Counting Only the Cells You Specify. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
SUMIF(): Adding Only the Cells You Specify. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
COUNTIFS() and SUMIFS(): Counting and Summing Using Multiple Criteria. . . . . 368
Descriptive Names for Cell References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Creating and Using a Named Range.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Creating Slightly Smarter Named Ranges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Naming Formulas and Constants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
Managing Named Ranges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Automatically Creating Named Ranges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Applying Names to Existing Formulas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Variable Data Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Creating a One-Variable Data Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
Creating a Two-Variable Data Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Controlling Recalculation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Solving Formula Errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Step-by-Step Evaluation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
Tracing Precedents and Dependents.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
Error Checking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

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Part Three: Organizing Worksheets
Chapter 14: Tables: List Management Made Easy. . . . . . . . . . 395
The Basics of Tables.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Creating a Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Formatting a Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
Editing a Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Selecting Parts of a Table.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
Sorting and Filtering a Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Applying a Simple Sort Order. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Sorting with Multiple Criteria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
Sorting by Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Filtering with the List of Values.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411
Creating Smarter Filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Dealing with Duplicate Rows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
Highlighting Duplicates.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Removing Duplicates Automatically. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
Performing Table Calculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418
Dynamic Calculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Column Names.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
Table Names. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421
The Total Row. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422
The SUBTOTAL() Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423
The Database Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

Chapter 15: Grouping and Outlining Data.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Basic Data Grouping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Creating a Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
Nesting Groups Within Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434
Summarizing Your Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Combining Data from Multiple Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
Grouping Timesavers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Auto Outline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
Automatic Subtotaling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Chapter 16: Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Understanding Templates.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Creating a New Workbook from a Template.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
Downloading Templates (Method 1: From Backstage View). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448
Downloading Templates (Method 2: The Office Online Website).. . . . . . . . . . . 450
Creating Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
Understanding Custom Templates.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454
Building a Custom Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Sharing Templates with Others. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

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 Part Four: Charts and Graphics
Chapter 17: Creating Basic Charts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
Charting 101.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462
Embedded and Standalone Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Creating a Chart with the Ribbon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
The Chart Tools Ribbon Tabs.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
Basic Tasks with Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Moving and Resizing a Chart.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
Creating a Standalone Chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
Editing and Adding to Chart Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Changing the Chart Type.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Printing Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
Practical Charting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
Charts with Multiple Series of Numbers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Controlling the Data Excel Plots on the X-Axis.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Data That Uses a Date or Time Scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476
Noncontiguous Chart Ranges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
Changing the Order of Your Data Series.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
Changing the Way Excel Plots Blank Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Chart Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481
Column. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482
Bar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
Line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
Pie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
Area.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486
XY (Scatter).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
Stock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Surface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490
Donut.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
Bubble. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492
Radar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Chapter 18: Formatting and Perfecting Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Chart Styles and Layouts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Chart Styles.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496
Chart Layouts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Adding Chart Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
Adding Titles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Adding a Legend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500
Adding Data Labels to a Series.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
Adding Individual Data Labels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
Adding a Data Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Selecting Chart Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

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 Formatting Chart Elements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Coloring the Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
Fancy Fills.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Fancy Borders and Lines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 514
Formatting Data Series and Data Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516
Reusing Your Favorite Charts with Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
Improving Your Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Controlling a Chart’s Scale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Adding a Trendline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
Adding Error Bars to Scientific Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526
Formatting 3-D Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
Changing the Shape of a 3-D Column. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Advanced Charting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
Exploding Slices in a Pie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
Grouping Slices in a Pie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531
Gaps, Widths, and Overlays in a Column Chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Creating Combination Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

Chapter 19: Inserting Graphics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Adding Pictures to a Worksheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Inserting a Picture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
Positioning and Resizing a Picture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Picture Touch-Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 543
Compressing Pictures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
Cropping and Shaping a Picture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
Picture Borders, Effects, and Styles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
Excel’s Clip Art Library. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551
Drawing Shapes.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Drawing a Shape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
Adding Text to a Shape.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
Selecting and Arranging Shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560
Connecting Shapes.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564
SmartArt. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565

Part Five: Advanced Data Analysis

Chapter 20: Visualizing Your Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 569
Data Bars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
Editing a Formatting Rule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
Fine-Tuning Data Bars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
Color Scales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Fine-Tuning Color Scales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578
Icon Sets.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579
Fine-Tuning Icon Sets.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

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 Sparklines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
Creating a Sparkline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585
Changing the Axis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
Markers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590

Chapter 21: Scenarios and Goal Seeking.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593

Using Scenarios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
Creating a New Scenario.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594
Managing Scenarios. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
Creating a Summary Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
Using Goal Seek.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
Goal Seeking with Complex Equations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
Solver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 604
Understanding Solver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
Defining a Problem in Solver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
More Advanced Solver Problems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612
Saving Solver Models. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
Configuring Solver. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Chapter 22: Pivot Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621

Summary Tables Revisited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
Life Without Pivot Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
Life with Pivot Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
Building Pivot Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624
Preparing a Pivot Table.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 626
Pivot Table Regions.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 628
Laying Out a Pivot Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
Formatting a Pivot Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Rearranging a Pivot Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
Getting to the Source.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
Multi-Layered Pivot Tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635
Hiding and Showing Details. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
Fine-Tuning Pivot Table Calculations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Changing the Type of Calculation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
Adding a Calculated Field. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 640
Filtering a Pivot Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
Report Filtering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
Slicers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
Group Filtering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
Pivot Charts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652
Creating a Pivot Chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
Manipulating a Pivot Chart.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654

xiv table of contents

Chapter 23: Analyzing Databases, XML, and Web Pages.. . . . . 657
Excel and Databases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658
Connecting to an Access Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659
Refreshing Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
Data Source Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
Connecting to a SQL Server Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 665
Reusing Your Database Connection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668
Understanding XML.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671
What Is XML, Really?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671
Three Rules of XML.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
XML Files and Schemas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
Excel and XML.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676
Mapping a Simple Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
Importing and Exporting XML. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
Mapping Lists.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
Gaining the Benefits of XML Mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
Web Queries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686
The Limitations of Web Queries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
Creating a Web Query. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
The Research Pane—A Web Query Alternative. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 690

Part Six: Sharing Data with the Rest of the World

Chapter 24: Protecting Your Workbooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Understanding Excel’s Safeguards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
Data Validation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694
Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695
Input Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696
Error Alert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698
Data Validation with Formulas and Cell References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700
Data Validation with Lists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 702
Locked and Hidden Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703
Protecting a Worksheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705
Protecting the Entire Workbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707
Protecting Cell Ranges (with More Passwords). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709
Allowing Specific Windows Users to Edit a Range.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

Chapter 25: Worksheet Collaboration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

Your Excel Identity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716
Preparing Your Workbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716
Workbook Protection.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
Checking for Issues.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718
Document Properties.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

table of contents xv
 Distributing a Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722
Sending by Email.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 723
Uploading to the Web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724
Adding Comments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 724
Inserting a Comment.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725
Showing and Hiding Comments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726
Fine-Tuning Comments.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 727
Reviewing Comments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728
Printing Comments.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729
Tracking Changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 729
Switching On Change Tracking.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731
Understanding the Change Log. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 732
Highlighting Changes.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734
Examining the Change Log.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735
Accepting and Rejecting Changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737
Merging Multiple Revisions into One Workbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 739
Sharing Your Workbook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741
Multiple Users Without Workbook Sharing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742
Turning On Workbook Sharing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743
Workbook Sharing in Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745

Chapter 26: Using Excel on the Web. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749

Putting Your Files Online. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750
Introducing SkyDrive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751
Your Web Workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Uploading a File to SkyDrive (Using Your Browser).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753
Uploading a Workbook to SkyDrive (Using Excel).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756
Uploading a Workbook to a SharePoint Server. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Viewing a File in Your SkyDrive Account.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760
Viewing a File in Someone Else’s SkyDrive Account.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762
Using the Excel Web App. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764
Supported Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765
Saving Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 768
Collaboration: The Excel Web App’s Specialty.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 768
Taking a Workbook Back to Desktop Excel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770
Unsupported Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771
Partially Supported Features.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 773

Chapter 27: Exchanging Data with Other Programs.. . . . . . . . 775

Sharing Information in Windows.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 775
Embedding and Linking Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777
Exporting Charts Out of Excel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778
Editing a Linked Object.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 781
Editing an Embedded Object.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 782
Importing Objects into Excel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 784

xvi table of contents

 Transferring Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 785
Exporting Tables of Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786
Importing Tables of Data.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787
Importing Text Files.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787

Part Seven: Programming Excel

Chapter 28: Automating Tasks with Macros. . . . . . . . . . . . . 793
Macros 101. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793
Macro-Free and Macro-Enabled Workbooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795
The Macro Recorder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 795
Relative and Absolute Recording.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 796
Where Macros Live.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 797
Recording a Macro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 799
Playing a Macro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 802
Macro Security. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803
Trusted Documents.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804
Temporary Trust. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 806
The Trust Center. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 806
Setting Up a Trusted Location. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809
Creating Practical Macros.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 810
Inserting a Header. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811
Alternating Row Formatting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 812
A Combined Task.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813
Placing a Macro on the Quick Access Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 814
Attaching a Macro to a Button Inside a Worksheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 816

Chapter 29: Programming Spreadsheets with VBA. . . . . . . . . 819

The Visual Basic Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820
The Project Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820
Modules and Macros.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 822
Finding and Moving Macros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824
Debugging a Macro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824
Understanding Macro Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 826
The Anatomy of a Macro.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 826
Objects 101. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 828
Using Properties and Methods.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829
Hunting for Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830
Exploring the VBA Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 830
Entering Text in the Current Cell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831
Interacting with Other Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 832
Editing Specific Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 833

table of contents xvii

 Formatting Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 834
Using Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 834
Making Decisions.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 836
Repeating Actions with a Loop.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 838
Creating Custom Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839

Part Eight: Appendix

Appendix A: Customizing the Ribbon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 855

xviii table of contents

Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
distress. Then he turned away, and his only response was a
deliberate inclination of his head.

They had ridden miles up the gorge of Three-Way Creek. And then—
and then, as they came in sight of the smiling waters of the lagoon-
like pool which formed the headwaters of the creek, the whole of the
tragedy was revealed.
Molly’s pinto mare, Rachel, was grazing peacefully on such rank
grass as grew amidst the confusion of rocks. The little creature was
saddled and bridled. But the saddle was empty, and the mare was
free to stray as her mood inclined her.
It was Blanche who first beheld her and cried out. She flung out a
pointing hand.
“Jim!” she cried. “Look! Molly’s mare! There! Ahead by the water.
What is she——”
But her words were lost as her horse leapt forward. And Jim
followed hard on her heels.
As she came to the edge of the lagoon Blanche flung herself out of
the saddle. She had moved on searching amongst the boulders.
There was no doubt in her mind, none whatever. Molly’s mare
saddled and bridled as she was, had not strayed into the gorge. She
had been ridden there. Molly must be there, too.
Jim was left to round up the mare.
Blanche’s discovery came quickly. There it was, huddled and still,
lying under the lea of an up-standing rock, perilously adjacent to
where the rippling surface of the lagoon lapped against the stone.
She dropped upon her knees. She set her arms about the poor limp
body, and raised it so that she could gaze into the ashen face of the
girl she had come to love so deeply. It was Molly. It was Molly
looking like death, and wholly unconscious.
What had happened? Why was Molly here at these headwaters, so
far from her home? Had her pinto fallen with her? And what had she
been doing here at the water’s edge?
Blanche glanced up at the sound of Jim’s approach over the stones.
“I’m not sure she isn’t—dead,” she said, in hushed tones.
“Not—dead!”
There was that in the man’s voice Blanche had never heard before.
In a moment he was kneeling beside her, studying the death-like
face. The eyes were half closed, and looked fixed and utterly lifeless.
The lips were without colour. The gently swelling bosom was still—so
ominously still.
“There’s a bruise, but no cut,” he said, indicating her forehead, and
shaking his white head. “That wouldn’t have killed her. No.”
He picked up one of the girl’s limp arms. He raised it. Then he laid it
down again with infinite gentleness. Again he shook his head.
“She’s not dead,” he said emphatically.
“No.”
Blanche’s reply came mechanically. She was struggling with the fear
that possessed her. Then her courage seemed to return. She drew a
deep breath, and relinquished the girl to the man’s support while she
sat back on her heels.
“She’s badly crashed, anyway,” she said. “She’s been thrown or fallen
from her pony. But—why here? Why at the edge of the water? What
was she doing here, anyway? My!”
She watched Jim’s movements. He was gently stroking the broad
white forehead, removing the loose hair which had fallen over it. He
laid his finger-tips upon the girl’s temples. Then, very carefully, he
endeavoured to raise an eyelid. After that he laid her gently back on
the ground.
The next moment he was on his feet, and Blanche too, stood up. He
stared about him at the dark scene which the sun was endeavouring
to lighten. And for awhile he remained lost in thought.
He was gazing up at the western hillside, where the mouth of a
great cavern yawned, and out of which a shallow stream cascaded
down over a tatter of rocks to the lagoon below. It was the same on
three sides. Towering hills surrounded a narrow amphitheatre, that
was darkly forbidding by reason of the immensity of height that
crowded it, and the pine woods which edged the lagoon. The waters
reflected the gloomy scene, and the sun, slanting its blaze of light,
transformed the clear depths into a mirror of dancing light.
The place appeared to be a sort of dead end. To any who knew
nothing of the tunnel exit it literally was a dead end. There was no
apparent outlet other than that which the flowing waters had made
for themselves down the gorge. For the rest, a barrier stood up,
shutting it off from the mountain heart beyond.
There were three streams, which, pouring down the hillsides, fed the
lagoon, and subsequently the creek. There was one to the north,
one coming down the southern hillside, and that which tumbled
headlong out of the mouth of the cavern set so far up on the face of
the western hills.
The whole place seemed to be a barrier designed by Nature in her
most secret mood—a barrier which was the whole salvation of those
who lived in the world of hills beyond it. But the passage was there.
It was there through the yawning mouth of the cavern. And it was
approached by a long inclined path set on a narrow ledge, which
rose diagonally from the foot of the southern hill and made its
devious way across its precipitous face.
At last Jim turned from his contemplation of the splashing water
pouring from the cavern mouth. He glanced across at the three
horses tethered at the edge of the surrounding forest. Blanche urged
him.
“We need to act quick,” she said, her troubled eyes gazing down at
the object of their pity. Then: “What—what are we to do?”
“Do? Do?”
A great light was shining in the man’s eyes. It was a smile of hope
such as Blanche had never known in him. It was as though the
tragedy they had discovered had furnished him with something he
had never looked for, as though a great overwhelming desire of his
had been suddenly fulfilled.
“She’s going right up the valley. That poor little kid isn’t dead. She’s
just sick to death. Do? Why, she needs all the help we can hand her.
It’s my chance. It’s the thing I’ve dreamed. I’m going to pay her
father through her. And I’m going to pay with both hands.”

Jim Pryse’s purpose was carried out without regard to any

consequences. His impulse was irresistible. Blanche had protested
half-heartedly, but her protests had been swept aside. She had
warned him of the danger to himself and to others in the thing he
was about to do. And he had laughed. She had reminded him of
Lightning, and Molly’s own home. And again he had only laughed.
Then he had displayed that forethought for which Blanche had given
him no credit.
His plan was simple, as his plans always were. He had thought out
the whole thing at the express speed which was ever his way. His
purpose alone mattered. All objections that might fairly be raised
against it were only things to be ignored, and, in a few moments,
the whole thing had been agreed between them. In the end Blanche
gladly enough undertook her share in the work.
It was arranged that they should change horses, for two perfectly
sound reasons. In the first place, Beelzebub was the fresher of the
two, and he was high strung and nervous, and would be difficult
when asked to carry that which looked so like a dead human body.
So it was decided that Pedro, the infinitely more steady, should carry
Molly and Jim up to the valley.
The change of saddles effected, Blanche assisted in lifting Molly
across the front of Jim’s saddle. When Jim had mounted, and raised
her into his arms, and, supporting her, had set off up the queer
ledge path to the cavern mouth from which the sparkling waters
cascaded, Blanche watched him, confident but anxious. She watched
the graceful, docile sorrel plod its way up the familiar path. She saw
it pause for a moment at the entrance to the tunnel, while Jim
shifted his burden to a position of greater security. Then the beast
stepped into the shallow flood, and splashing its way up the stream,
became swallowed up by the darkness out of which the waters
leapt.
With a sigh of relief she turned to Beelzebub and sprang into the
saddle, to carry out her part in the arrangements. There were some
twenty-odd miles of the gorge before she got back to Dan Quinlan’s
valley, and after that a few more miles to the Marton farm. Her day
had already been long, but she gave no thought to her own comfort.
She was determined to do her utmost for Molly and for her brother.
Molly’s pinto was willing enough to be led back to its home, so she
removed the little creature’s reins, hanging over the horn of her
saddle, and, linking her arm through them, set off downstream in
quest of Lightning and the farm.
 CHAPTER XXIX
Lightning’s Despair
LIGHTNING had never made the trip into Hartspool at such a speed.
His horse had understood the thing expected of it at the moment of
setting out. The savage Mexican spurs on the old man’s heels had
told the willing creature all and more than it wanted to know, and
Lightning had raced into the busy township. He had ignored every
familiar stopping-place. He wanted none of them. He rode straight
on to Doc Blanchard’s house.
The doctor was away—gone for a prolonged holiday to the east.
Lightning blasphemed, as was inevitable. But the hired man who
informed him could give not a glimmer of hope. The Doc, he assured
him, wouldn’t return in weeks, maybe months. It was a medical
conference of very great importance. And in the end the old man
was forced to return home, disappointed, hopeless, helpless.
His journey home was no less rapid. His outward journey had been
inspired by his desire to obtain help. His homeward journey was
inspired by his desire that Molly should lack no help that he could
render. And as a consequence Barney Lake never even obtained a
glimpse of his faithful customer.
But Lightning’s return home afforded him one of the worst moments
of his old life. Within half an hour of his arrival, at an hour when
supper should have been preparing, and everything should have
been snugged down for the night, he learned something of the
extent of the disaster that had befallen. Molly had disappeared. She
had completely vanished, and, apparently, with her had gone her
pinto mare.
For a brief while the old man thought she had possibly ridden out for
some form of pastime, perhaps feeling that the evening air and a
good gallop would help to restore her after that which had happened
at noon. But a close scrutiny of the state of things generally quickly
convinced him that something desperate was wrong. The team had
not been fed. The cows were standing at the corral fence waiting to
be admitted and fed. And in the house there was not a sign of any
preparation of supper. It was this, to him, amazing state of things
that stirred within him the full sense of disaster.
He set to work feverishly to repair the neglect. He fed his team and
the rest of the horses; he saw to the cows and hayed them. He
raced through his round of chores, even to hauling water for the
house. Then he bestowed such food as his pockets would contain,
saddled a fresh horse, and set out, determined to ride till darkness
defeated his search.
It was long after darkness when he turned. And as he came to the
farm again he looked eagerly for a light shining in the window of the
living-room. There was none. The house was as empty as he had
left it, and the pinto’s stall at the barn was still waiting the return of
its occupant.
After a long, wakeful night Lightning set out again. This time he
prepared for all eventualities. He turned the horses out into the fifty-
acre pasture, which, in Molly’s dreams of the future, had been
ultimately intended to come under the plough. The cows, too, were
turned loose. Fortunately they were no longer in milk, and their need
could be easily satisfied with the grass feed, and the waters of the
creek. Then, with a mind at rest so far as the farm was concerned,
and with his guns slung about his lean body, he set out to scour the
countryside, determined to continue his search until the worst was
known.
His first search lay in the direction of McFardell’s homestead. It was
a natural instinct that prompted him. His crude mind indicated that
as being the most likely direction. But disappointment awaited him.
The place was still deserted. It was precisely as he had left it once
before, even to the broken doors which his heavy boots had
destroyed. From the homestead his course radiated over the
surroundings of hill and forest. He searched with every instinct alert,
and with eyes that never in his long years had been keener for such
a task. But every hour only added to his disappointment; every
moment deepened his despair.
Noon came and passed. He ate and rested his horse. Then he
continued as he had planned. His next effort carried him back
beyond the farm into the valley of Dan Quinlan. He meant to ride till
night, return to the farm to sleep, and, with a fresh horse, set out
again on the following morning.
He had scoured the woods along the creek. He had sought every
rising ground that could afford him breadth of view. He had
searched as never in his life had he thought to search in that
amazing wilderness. And more than half the afternoon had spent
itself when, utterly dispirited, he turned and crossed the creek at the
water-hole. There was nothing left him but to retrace his steps and
search the far side of the valley.
At last he reached the opening of the gorge of Three-Way Creek. His
old body was weary and his heart was sick. Yet he drew rein at the
edge of the water just above its junction with the bigger stream and
contemplated the wide-flung entrance to the western gap. It was
not that it interested him deeply. He had always known of its
existence. But never in all his years on the farm had he attempted to
explore it. Now, however, he wondered. Now he gazed at it with a
new interest. Yes, nothing must be left to chance. To-morrow——
He turned an ear alertly. Every nerve was on edge, and nothing
escaped him, sight nor sound. Now, though probably
indistinguishable to ordinary hearing, there came to him, clear, and
beyond all question of doubt, the plodding sound of hoofs. He
waited well-nigh breathless while he decided the direction in which
the hoofs were travelling. And a sigh escaped him. The hoofs were
approaching—rapidly.
He lifted his reins and turned his horse heading for the gorge. He
urged the wary beast through the bare-trunk aisles of the twilit
woods. Just ahead of him there was a wide patch of sunlight, and he
made for it. And as he came to the edge of the clearing a rider,
mounted on a coal-black horse and leading a familiar pinto pony,
broke from the wood directly opposite him.
 CHAPTER XXX
Lightning Passes the Barrier
BLANCHE knew better than to make any mystery of the situation
when she encountered Lightning. She knew it was a moment when
frankness alone was possible. For the old man laid bare his soul to
her in the words of his greeting.
“You got her mare,” he had cried, at sight of the pinto, in tones that
were unforgettable. “Wher’ is she? I want her, that pore, sick kid.”
Blanche replied without hesitation as she reined up her horse.
“That’s why I’m here, Lightning,” she said gently. “We’ve got her.
Found her lying all of a heap up this gorge. My friends have taken
her back to our camp, where there’s a doctor man.”
“She ain’t—dead?” Something like terror looked out of the man’s
eyes, and again Blanche realised his burning devotion.
“She’s bad, but I don’t think she’s dead,” she replied. “Will you come
with me?”
“You ain’t—lyin’?”
“Why should I lie?”
The man remained for a moment without speaking. He was striving
to read behind the eyes of the woman who had no desire to conceal
the truth.
“We’ll go right now,” he said at last, and bestirred himself.
“This pony?” Blanche demurred. “Can we leave her at the farm?”
Lightning shook his head decidedly.
“She’ll need her,” he said. “We’ll take her along.” Then his manner
softened. “Maybe you’ll tell me things, ma’am,” he said. “You can tell
me as we go.”
It was then that Blanche became mistress of the situation. She was
determined that no chance word of hers should hurt her brother.
And she had no fear of this man, for all his manner and the ugly
guns he carried.
“No,” she said. “I’ve told you the simple truth. We found poor Molly
badly smashed. She’s gone where the right help can be found for
her. And I’ll take you to her at once, if you like. You must trust me.”
And Lightning agreed. Whatever suspicions Blanche’s refusal might
have inspired they remained unexpressed. For the time he seemed
suddenly to have frozen up.
Now they had ridden the miles of the gorge together, right up the
headwaters of the creek, only speaking just sufficient for the needs
of the journey.
At the foot of the inclined ledge, over which the ascent to the cavern
mouth had yet to be made, Blanche turned to the cattleman.
Beelzebub, with head haughtily raised, gazed disdainfully upon its
more lowly companions.
Blanche indicated the path, which, for all its indefiniteness at the
start, carried prompt conviction to the practical mind of Lightning.
He observed the marks of usage at once. The lank grass was
obviously hoof-trodden.
“Will the pinto trail behind on your rope?” she asked. “There isn’t
room for two ponies abreast. If it won’t travel that way we’d best
leave it right here. You can pick her up going back.”
Lightning shook his head. His eyes were unsmiling.
“Molly needs her,” he said shortly.
“Well, it’s up to you,” Blanche said with a shrug. “Look up there at
the mouth of that tunnel, where the water’s pouring down the rocks.
This path rises on a ledge, and makes its way to that cave. We’re
going to pass right inside it. It’s a tunnel; and the walls of rock meet
overhead for several hundred yards. After that they open out, and
we pass into the higher hill country. Do you feel good about it?”
“You said Molly’s at the end of our journey, ma’am,” Lightning said
quietly. “The things by the way don’t matter a curse.”
Blanche smiled as she listened. Her heart warmed towards this
queer creature with his ragged whisker, and his long guns with their
many barrels.
She inclined her head, and turned Beelzebub to the path.
“Then keep close on my trail,” she said, and lifted her reins.
The procession started. Beelzebub moved confidently. The creature
was familiar with every foot of the path, and seemed to rejoice in
the rapid dropping away of the gloomy lake-shore as he mounted
the sometimes almost precipitous incline. Lightning came hard
behind him, and beyond him trailed the pinto on the end of a
rawhide rope.
There was not a moment of hesitation on the part of the horses new
to the ascent. Lightning was a master in the saddle, and his horse
had the added encouragement of the black quarters directly in front
of his nose. The pinto, behind, knew her stable companion, and was
more than content.
The path quickly became a rocky ledge about four feet wide, with
the wall of the hill sloping back from it. It mounted sharply and then
flattened; and, a few yards farther on, it rose sharply again.
Lightning seemed quite unconcerned with its vagaries. He seemed to
disregard its turnings and twistings, and its width at no time gave
him a moment of unease. He once or twice glanced below as the
precipice deepened, and the flash of sunlit waters caught his eye;
but his chief concern was the well-clad woman’s figure, ahead of
him, and the thing that had already passed between them.
Half-way up the mounting path Beelzebub dislodged a small rock,
which clattered as it rolled over the precipice and hurtled to the
depths below. The horse gave no heed to it, but its rider was
startled. Lightning saw her movement of sudden apprehension.
“Leave him his head, ma’am,” he warned. “He’s got elegant nerve.”
It was not his words so much as the sound of his voice that instantly
restored Blanche’s confidence. She eased her hand, and the horse
continued the ascent.
They had passed the sharp angle where the ledge cut on to the face
of the western hill, and mounted the last lift which terminated at the
tunnel entrance. The black pressed on eagerly towards the tumbling
waters, and Lightning was close behind. The clatter of hoofs became
lost in the turmoil of breaking water. A light spray was floating in the
air, moistening it, and tempering its heat to something pleasantly
cool and humid.
Far below them the lagoon, with its surrounding of forest, looked
strangely small and distant. And the creek itself, beyond that, looked
nothing bigger than a glistening silver thread. In his watchful fashion
Lightning had made an estimate of the height they had climbed. He
knew it could not be less than four hundred feet.
As the black came to the edge of the little watercourse Lightning
held up his horse. He realised the sharpness of the turn the creature
ahead of him had to make. He gave the beast room, and Beelzebub
passed swiftly into the water and into the tunnel.
The waiting man was about to follow on. He lifted his reins, but on
the instant checked his horse. He turned about in the saddle and sat
gazing far down the gorge. He sat there still and watchful until the
muffled tones of Blanche’s voice encouraging him came back to him
from the tunnel. Then he urged his horse, and followed her into the
yawning archway.
For awhile, as the darkness engulfed him, only the light from the
mouth of the cavern behind served Lightning with any idea of the
nature of the tunnel through which he was passing. At first he was
aware of dripping walls set nearly twenty feet apart. The roof, too,
was dripping, and his horse was wading a shallow stream whose
depth was no greater than sufficient to cover its fetlocks. But the
sound of the movements of the horse in front came back to him, and
he was satisfied. Wherever the woman led he was unafraid to follow.
The pinto behind him was less easy than its stable companion. It
had no rider to encourage it, and its equine terror was in full play.
Once within the broad cavern, however, Lightning drew it up
alongside him, and persuaded it, and soothed it, with voice and
hand.
The light from behind died out, and black darkness completely
engulfed him. Only was there the splash of the water underfoot to
afford any sort of guidance. But this phase of the passage was little
more than momentary. Almost at once, it seemed, the pitchy
darkness gave way to a faint twilight that made progress possible.
The light came from above, and Lightning promptly discovered that
the cavern had passed, and, in its place, he was moving up the
course of a stream flowing through a deep cleft in the mountain. He
gazed up, searching for a sight of the sky above him, but there was
none. The light percolated down through the rift, but the rugged
facets of rock hid its origin.
As he rode on the light steadily increased. The rift was widening.
Now Lightning could clearly see the outline of the horse and rider
ahead of him. And the walls were falling back, and the bed of the
stream was widening. Presently the woman and her horse passed
out of view, and the watchful man understood that the passage had
taken a bend to the right. He could clearly see the sharp, dark line of
the wall directly ahead, and on the opposite wall was an increase of
light.
He came up to the bend. He passed it. And, in a moment, he beheld
full daylight. He drew a deep breath. It was an expression of that
relief which never fails the human on returning to the daylight which
has been denied.
The journey was nearing its end. For two hours or more Blanche and
Lightning had been riding the wilderness of forest, and hill, and
valley, since leaving the dark precincts of Nature’s secret postern.
It was a world whose might was nothing new with which to impress
the mind of Lightning. The hills were, perhaps, more sublime in their
magnificence; the forests were, perhaps, more deep and dark than
those amongst which his life was passed. The towering crests,
spread with the sweep of eternal glaciers, affected him no more
than did the sparse grass under his horse’s hoofs, and the beds of
treacherous tundra which had to be so carefully avoided. He was
preoccupied to the exclusion of everything in Nature. One thought,
one purpose, alone actuated him. Blindly he was permitting himself
to be led to the only goal desired. Somewhere in these hills Molly
was lying sick, possibly to death, and the woman beside him was
conducting him to the haven with which her friends had provided
her.
They were moving up an incline which mounted to a saddle between
two lesser hills. There were great sweeps of forest on either hand,
and with a break between them of barren, rocky highway that was
without a vestige of vegetation. Away to the right, far across a
valley, a mountain reared its head, and plunged it deep into the
heart of the summer cloudbanks. To the left of them lay the upward
sweep of forest, which only terminated where the snow-line cut it
off.
“We’ve come more’n fifteen miles since we quit the headwaters,”
Lighting said, in his ungracious fashion. “How much farther?”
Blanche turned at the sound of his voice. She smiled as she took in
the hawk-like profile of the man. She realised his intensity of feeling.
She warned herself of the trust he had placed in her. And she forgot
completely his ungraciousness, and remembered only that phrase
with which he greeted her: “I want that pore sick kid.”
“You’ll see the camp from the ‘saddle,’” she said quietly, raising an
arm and pointing ahead. “It’s right below the Gateway.”
“The Gateway?”
The old man was staring round at her.
Blanche nodded. Her smile had deepened, but it elicited not a
shadow of any responsive smile.
“Yes. The Gateway of Hope,” she said. “It’s a wide-open Gateway,
that’s never closed to those in trouble—simple human trouble. And
beyond it is shelter, and help, and—peace. Molly’s in trouble, and—
she’s passed in through that Gateway.”
Lightning leant and spat beyond his horse’s shoulder. Then he raised
a hand and scratched the unbrushed hair under the wide brim of his
hat. He stared incredulously into the woman’s eyes.
“Say, ma’am,” he suddenly exploded, “you ain’t crazy?”

They had halted at the highest point of the saddle. Blanche had
permitted the cattleman to reach the summit first. It was he who
had made the halt. And he sat there in his saddle, gazing down on
the thing that had seemed to him so unbelievable.
There was the Gateway—two sheer, barren cliffs rising out of the
forest which grew about their feet. They were wide, so wide, and
towered to a height that was amazing. They formed a clean-cut
gateway, as though set up by some giant hand, for the silver streak
of a placid river that flowed in between them. Behind them and
about them lay a wilderness of wooded hills. They had none of the
darkness of the greater forests they had hitherto encountered. They
were softly green and gracious in their many hues.
But Lightning ignored these things. His concern was for that which
lay beyond the Gateway. It was the splendour of the valley which
had captured Jim Pryse during his long imprisonment in it, and the
handiwork that had since been achieved.
It was a wonderful picture in the light of the setting sun. And it
stirred the old man’s pulses with something of the hope of which
Blanche had spoken. The woman was not crazy. No. Molly was down
there, somewhere there in the shelter of that ranch-house, with its
wonderful pastures, and corrals, and barns, and——
Lightning turned from it all. He sought the woman’s face and
realised her smile. Then he turned an ear to windward.
“Are you satisfied I wasn’t fooling you, Lightning?” Blanche spoke
almost joyously. “Molly’s down there in my house by now, and
maybe the doctor’s already fixed her.”
“It’s your house, ma’am?” Lightning said, with an ear still turned.
“Mine and my brother’s. Shall we get on down? We’ve more than
two miles to go.”
“Sure, we’ll get right on down. Say——”
The old man broke off as the horses began the descent. As he made
no attempt to add anything further, Blanche spoke, and there was
something thrilling in her tone.
“He built all that,” she said. “He built it for a notion. A queer sort of
crazy notion. And I sort of feel his dream’s coming true. You’re a
cattleman, Lightning. There are cattle down there that’ll make you
feel good. There’s the sort of grass you dream about, and the life
you know. You’re the first from the outside that’s ever seen it.”
“You’re sure that’s so, ma’am?”
Blanche searched the eyes that were looking into hers.
“There’s only Molly else,” she said. “And maybe she’s not seen it yet,”
she added significantly.
“You got folk outside them gates?” Lightning asked, pointing at the
headlands.
“Not a soul.”
Lightning suddenly drew rein, and turned about in his saddle. He
gazed back over the way they had come.
“Then I guess ther’s a stranger chasin’ up,” he said sharply. “We’re
follered, ma’am.”
 CHAPTER XXXI
Lightning Becomes a Friend
“LIGHTNING thinks we’ve been followed, Jim.”
Jim Pryse surveyed the lean figure that suggested nothing so much
as a bare frame strung with whipcord. He knew Lightning well
enough from his sister’s account of him, and from the talk of Molly
on their memorable ride together. But this was the first time he had
set eyes upon him. And from his head to his heels the old cattleman
became an object of the keenest interest.
Lightning gave no sign. And somehow the whole poise of the man
suggested to Jim something of his boyhood’s ideas of the calm of
the Red Indian. There was even more than that in the likeness—the
man’s face and high cheekbones, the aquilinity of his nose, and the
thinness of his capacious mouth. Only were his eyes, and the foolish
tatter of his chin-whisker, anachronisms.
They were standing on the verandah, and Lightning was studying
the white-haired man with no less an interest. The two men were
taking each other’s measure.
“We were.”
Lightning corrected the doubt in Blanche’s statement with cold
assurance. Then he went on, quite undeflected from his purpose.
“I come fer Molly,” he said. “I got her pony to take her back.”
There was a negative movement of Jim’s head. He turned to
Blanche.
“You’d best get right into the house, Sis,” he said. “Doc Lennox is
with her now. Poor little kid. She woke right up as we rode up to this
verandah, and I guess I was never so crazy at the sight of a pair of
wide-open eyes in my life. Right up to then I was scared she was
dead, for all I couldn’t believe it. But she wasn’t. No. And she’s going
to get right. But you get right in and hand Doc the help he needs.
There’s something else worrying, and—I need to make a big talk
here with Lightning.”
Blanche was glad enough to hurry away to Molly. And Jim waited
until she had passed in through the open French window. Then he
smiled as he indicated a chair to the man he had determined to
make his friend.
“Will you sit, Lightning?” he said. “You and I are no use to her in
there. Doc Lennox is a real, smart doctor man. And my sister’s crazy
for that little girl of yours. You and I can do better talking.”
There was a moment of hesitation, while Lightning seemed in the
throes of making up his mind. Then, quite suddenly, his coldness
seemed to melt, and he nodded.
“I don’t get things, an’ I want to know,” he said, as he sat himself in
the lounging chair.
“And I want to tell you,” Jim replied simply.
Jim took another chair, which he drew up and set facing the
cattleman. He was sitting with his back to the valley, which the
verandah overlooked. Lightning had a full view of everything—the
ranch, with its many buildings, and the range of the whole valley,
with its surroundings of forest and mountain. Jim offered a cigar, but
Lightning shook his head.
“Guess I’ll chew,” he said, and the other kicked a cuspidore towards
him.
Lightning fumbled a piece of chewing plug from his hip pocket. He
bit deeply into it, and Jim watched him. He knew he had a difficult
talk before him, and meant to make no mistake.
“It’s queer, Lightning, how we can be rubbing shoulders with folk
and not know about it,” he began. “That’s how it is between you and
me and Molly. I’ve been in this valley a longish spell. I’ve been
around outside quite a lot. But it wasn’t till more than three months
back I knew of Marton’s farm, and of you and Molly. And yet ever
since I’ve been around here I’ve had in mind a great big hope that
some day I’d locate a boy called George Marton, who had a
daughter, and pay them both good for the help they once gave me.
It was the sort of help a man can never forget. It was something
that could never be paid for right. George Marton saved my life. He
saved me when few would have wanted to save me. It wasn’t only
my life he saved. It was something more than that. Sure enough, if
it hadn’t been for him my body would have been poor sort of feed
for timber wolves. But he saved me when he hadn’t a right to save
me. And it was Molly’s hands that provided the food that kept my
body going.”
Lightning stirred in a chair that left him feeling a queer sense of
mental discomfort. He tried to lounge back in it, but sat up again at
once. He ignored the cuspidore, and spat beyond the verandah.
“I ain’t pryin’ secrets,” he said, in his harsh way. “I’m jest lookin’ to
get Molly back to home. This talk ain’t——”
Jim nodded.
“It’s all to do with her being here,” he said quickly. “We—Sis and I—
knew where she came from when we found her down at the water’s
edge on Three-Way Creek. There wasn’t a thing to stop us riding
back with her the moment we located her. But we didn’t do that,
because——” He spread out his hands. “I meant to bring her right
along up here, and do my best to help her some way. You see,
Lightning, it was the chance I’d been yearning for. She was sick. She
was badly hurt. Then there was that cur McFardell, who’d set her
crazy for him, and—quit her cold.”
The old man’s jaws worked violently at the mention of McFardell’s
name. His eyes snapped. Jim interpreted the signs he beheld
unerringly. He inclined his white head.
“Sure, we’ll come back to him in awhile, Lightning,” he said. “Now I
just want you to listen. I’m going to hand you a story. I’m going to
put myself right into your hands. But it doesn’t worry me a thing.
You’ve just one idea in life, and so have I. It’s Molly. We’re both
looking to do the same thing from different ends. Well, we’ve got to
get on common ground. To do that I want you to know me, and all
about me. When you know that I’ll be good and satisfied, if you feel
that way and Molly’s yearning to go, for you to take her right back to
her farm. Will you hear the story first, boy?”
In a moment the hardness passed out of Lightning’s eyes, giving
place to a smile like a sunbeam breaking through the grey cloud of
winter. He gripped the arms of his chair.
“A friend to Molly, gal, is sure a friend to me, mister,” he said.
“Mebbe that story’s your own, and I’ll sure take it as told. That pore
gal’s eyes is full of sadness, an’ her innercent heart’s clear froze over.
I’m grievin’ fer her, an’ that’s all. An’ if you’re out to pass her help I
can’t never hope to, why, I’m all in it with you.”
But Jim shook his head.
“That’s not my way,” he said. “Sit right back and let me talk.”
Jim told his story with care for the detail of it. He began it at the
point where he had once saved his brother from the consequences
of shooting his wife’s lover. He told of his frustration of the Police; of
his ultimate trial and sentence. Then he passed on to his journey
down to the Calford penitentiary, with Corporal Andrew McFardell as
his escort. He smiled over the incident of his escape in the
snowstorm. Then came to the story of his battle for life, and his
arrival at Marton’s farm. He told of his appeal to the farmer, and its
amazing result. And it was at this point that the old cattleman
nodded and interrupted him.
“I get it now,” he cried. “That feller set you in the workshop. You
slep a night ther’. An’ you beat it at daylight. He warned me to keep
clear o’ that shack that night, and didn’t hand the story of it. Then
he asked Molly fer food come morning, and that day we was a
saddle-hoss short. It was you that was ther’ that night. An’ it was
you he passed on next morning. Gee! He was a swell feller.”
“He was more than that,” Jim replied, and drew a deep breath.
Then he continued rapidly. He told of his wanderings in the hills till
he found Dan Quinlan’s place. And the story of Dan Quinlan, and of
his ultimate shelter in the Valley of Hope, held the cattleman’s
deepest interest. Dan Quinlan! The man he had despised! The man
he had believed to be a cattle thief, and anything else that was
sufficiently unworthy! Then he came to the story of the valley as it
was at present.
“You see, Lightning,” he went on, “Dan’s got his share in this
enterprise. I’ve given him a share, and a good one. He’s got, or is
getting, a swell home, and all he needs for himself and the bunch
that he’s father, mother, and brother to. It’s something of a return to
him, but nothing like enough for what he did for me. I built this
place up for one big notion. I’m a rich man, with more dollars than I
need, but I tripped up badly. There’s not a moment of my foolish life
but I’m liable to go down to do five years in penitentiary. Well, I
figure there’s many folk fixed that way—folk who’re not a deal more
to blame than me. This is a shelter for such folk. They can come
here, and work, and hide, just as long as they fancy. But they can
only come on our terms, and live by our rules. And we aren’t a
harbour for real criminals. They need to be folk who’ve tripped up.
That’s all. There it is, boy. It’s maybe a crazy notion. But it’s a sort of
thanksgiving, and I got it right in my bones. And now my chance has
come to pay something of the debt I owe Molly and her father. And
you’ve come right along here to tell me you’re going to let me pay it
and help me. Isn’t that so? Yes. I guess it is.”
Lightning’s answer was there in the thrust of a hand that reached
out towards the man opposite him. Jim gripped it, and wrung it, and
as their hands fell apart the last of his smile vanished.
“We’ll get right back now to McFardell,” he said, and his face
hardened.
“You ain’t through with him,” Lightning interjected.
“No. I don’t want to be either.”
Lightning turned his gaze upon the valley below him, where the
passing of the evening sun had softened the far outline of the forest-
belts. The life of the place was settling for the night, and the lowing
of cattle came up to him, and reminded him of long past days.
“We were bein’ trailed on our way here,” he said significantly.
Jim shrugged.
“McFardell’s been trailing us weeks,” he said quietly. “He and I met
down near Molly’s farm, and he’s been trailing me ever since. It’s not
that worries me. If it did, I’d only need to have the folk beat up this
territory till we’d run him to earth. And he wouldn’t get a dog’s
chance to do the thing he reckons to do. It’s not that. It’s Molly I’m
thinking of.”
Lightning stirred uneasily in his chair. He watched the setting of Jim’s
jaws. He observed the abrupt change in the eyes he had seen so full
of kindliness. So he waited.
But Jim seemed in no hurry to continue. He was measuring the
queer creature that bore so deep a hallmark of the uncouth
manhood that had served him in his sixty years of hard life. He was
wondering. With an almost crazy disregard for consequences he had
put into Lightning’s hands power to undo for him all the labours of
the past years. The reason he had done it was the better to be able
to help Molly, whom he knew now needed all the help he could give
her. He needed this man’s complete trust and he believed he could
inspire it. Now, dared he tell him the rest? Dared he?
Yes. Molly must remain where she was. It was absolutely imperative.
Therefore there was only one course open to him—the truth, the
simple truth.
“No,” he said at last, “I don’t want to be through with that feller yet.
The longer he hangs around spying these hills the better.”
“Why?”
The word was jerked at him.
“We’ll know where he is,” Jim went on. “We’ll be the better able to
get our hands on him.”
“Why?”
Again came that swift interrogation.
“Why?” Jim glanced out over the evening scene below them. Then
his eyes came back with a steady look into the cattleman’s lean face.
“Because, if the thing Doc Lennox guesses is right, we’ll need him.
I’d say we’ll know when my sister gets back to us.”
“What d’you mean?”
Lightning was leaning forward crouching in his chair, his hands
gripping its arms as though he were about to spring. His eyes were
shining with the cold fury of a tiger. His jaws were still, the worn
remains of his teeth gritting.
Jim realised the storm lying behind his question.
“Why, there’s swine of men in the world, Lightning,” he said, “who’re
always ready to take advantage of a woman’s weakness when she
falls for the love that’s just bursting her heart. And—and—he’s one
of ’em.”
“God! I’ll kill him!”
Lightning’s words came with a shout. He had risen to his feet, and
stood for a moment unmoving. Then he came to the edge of the
verandah, and his eyes were on the hills, as though they were
already searching for his victim. Jim watched him. And as he
watched the man turned slowly.
“If—if he’s—”
“The Doc reckons someone has.”
Jim’s coldness matched the other’s. Lightning raised one clenched
fist. And the movement was an expression of irrevocable purpose.
“It’s him!” he cried. “I know it! Sure I know it! I knew it right after
that party night. An’ I’ve seen it in her pore face ever sence. Man,
that skunk’s goin’ to get it!”
 CHAPTER XXXII
Lightning Borrows a Horse
OUTWARDLY the life in the Valley of Hope had undergone no
change. The atmosphere of peace and well-being remained. There
was not even a ripple to be detected on the surface of things. Yet a
change had developed—a definite, significant change, which left a
feeling of unease, a question in the minds of those responsible for
the enterprise.
Daylight had found Jim Pryse and Larry Manford abroad. And their
work lay in the pacification of the fears which assailed those for
whose safety they held themselves responsible. A shudder of real
apprehension had found its way through the heart of the valley. How
it had done so no one seemed able to tell. Yet it had dated from the
moment of the arrival of Dan Quinlan’s “express.” It had to be dealt
with promptly, and Jim Pryse had set about it in thorough fashion. It
was this that preoccupied him at daylight on the morning following
Molly’s arrival at the valley.
Meanwhile the tragedy of Molly’s life was being enacted under the
roof of the home on the hillside. And those who were witness to it
were the skilful, diminutive Doc Lennox, and the woman whose
heart was racked with grief for the wantonness of the girl’s calamity.
The day broke calm and still. The valley was alive with the
goodliness of the season. There was the morning song coming up
from the river, and the sounds of stirring, eager life echoing through
the corrals and pastures. Great banks of summer mist enveloped the
slopes of the upper hills. Sunrise was at work upon them, and the
flood of brilliant light was fast rolling them upwards towards the
cloud-line.
Jim and Larry paced over the dew-laden, sun-scorched grass on
their way to the house where they would eat the breakfast waiting
for them.
Jim’s eyes were on the verandah ahead of them, for his concern for
that which had been passing within the walls of his home was
infinitely deeper than for any of his more personal anxieties.
“We’ve got to be rid of those boys before sundown,” he said,
reverting to the matter on which he was engaged. “You were right,
Larry,” he admitted. “There’s no real scare in them. And they’re using
the scare of the others for a play of their own. They’re a tough
bunch, and they mean mischief. I’m standing for no crook work
here. Despard’s got them tabbed. I figgered on three. But you
reckon that new fish, Jack Pike, is on the crook, too. Well, he’ll have
to go with ’em.”
Larry laughed quietly.
“It’s good you’ve got it at last, Jim,” he said. “I’ll be tickled to death
to see the last of Dago Naudin and Slattery. That Soapy Kid’s worse.
And as for Pike—well, I guess the rest, with them clear across the
border, will be like handling a Sunday school. I’ve no sort of illusions.
They’ll be double blindfold when they go, and I’ll pass them over
myself.”
“Maybe I’m losing one or two of my own tame illusions,” Jim said,
with a laugh that failed to change the look of anxiety with which he
was regarding the two figures on the verandah ahead of them. “But
I mean to play the hand out to the last card. I promised those boys
to clear up their scare for them, and I must make good. There needs
to be no let-down.”
“You mean—McFardell?”
“I certainly do.”
Larry shook his head. His inclination to laugh had gone. He saw the
difficulties, which, to his mind, short of murder were
insurmountable.
“How?”
His interrogation came with a sharpness that made Jim look round.
“There’s none of those boys who’ve relied on my word are going to
find trouble through McFardell,” he said deliberately.
“Which means, one way or another, an end of this show.”
Larry’s bluntness left the other unaffected.
“One way or another, maybe,” Jim agreed. “You see, boy, there’s that
poor little kid up there now, and it’s made a difference—a hell of a
difference—to the way I see things.”
“See here, Jim,” Larry replied sharply. “There’s two clear things I
see. McFardell’s got to be fixed so he can’t do the thing he wants, or
you’ve got to close right down here and get out. That’s the situation
as I see it. Lightning reckons he was followed here, which means
McFardell’s located the tunnel. He’s no doubt located the valley by
now. Well, what next?” He made an expressive gesture. “The game’s
up—right up. Unless, of course—— No, Jim, boy, the other’s not for
you, even for this kid, Molly Marton. You belong to us—Blanche and
me. There’s better than that waiting on you. McFardell deserves
anything he gets, but don’t let it come from you. Close down this
outfit and make a break for a new world. Blanche and I are right
with you. We’ll stick by you with the last ounce in us.”
The man’s freckled face was deadly serious, and his manner was
urgent. But, for all their apparent effect, his words might have
remained unuttered. Jim raised a hand, pointing at the verandah
they were approaching.
“The Doc’s waiting on us,” he said.
Further protest or appeal was useless. Larry knew too well the
headlong recklessness that governed this impulsive brother of the
woman he was to marry. He felt he had said all, and perhaps even
more than he should have said. He even felt that if he left well alone
his protest might actually bear some measure of fruit. At any rate he
had made it, and now he could only watch and wait, and, in so far
as lay within his power, do his best to protect this absurd creature
from his own loyal impulses.
As the two men approached the verandah both became absorbed in
the thing that was awaiting them. The dark-faced, quick-eyed Doc
Lennox was there. So was the overshadowing figure of Lightning.
The latter regarded them in the unseeing fashion of a mind oblivious
to the things he beheld.
“Well, Doc? Is it good news, or—bad?”
Jim stepped briskly on to the verandah, while Larry remained below.
Jim removed his broad-brimmed hat and flung it on the table. Then
he ran his fingers back through his white hair.
“It’s a question of point of view.” The doctor’s reply came without
encouragement.
“How?”
There was a curious blankness in Jim’s monosyllable.
The doctor’s quick eyes snapped as he looked up into the other’s
face, and all his professional attitude seemed to fall from him.
“If I’d a golden throne among the fool angels, who don’t know
better than to sit around doping over their harps,” he cried, without
a shadow of a smile, “I reckon I’d feel like weepin’ hot tears over
news as bad as human news can be. But, seeing they don’t keep my
size in haloes lying around up there, I’d say it’s—the best. That poor
kid’s going to pull round in no time at all,” he went on, with quiet
confidence. “She’s young, and she’s strong. She’s full of physical
health. It’s nursing she needs, and your good sister don’t need
showing a thing that way. But she’s had a bad shake-up. I mean
mentally. I can’t figure how bad it’s been. It sort of seems she came
darn near ending everything—whether by design or accident, God
alone knows. But I want to tell you the same as I’ve told him,” he
went on, indicating Lightning. “There’s some feller around who
needs lynching.”
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