long? I'll pick 'em out all
right--an' speedily."

Into his suddenly narrowing eye shot a menacing gleam. "An' ef them
fellers undertakes ter harm her, afore God, thar's goin' ter be some
shovelin' of grave-yard dirt, too."

Brent sought out the bank president who lived in town and put his terse
question as to whether Alexander had withdrawn from the safe, her
package of money.

"She hadn't been there again up to the time of my leaving," the banker
replied, "but, I came away before closing."

The telegraph office in the railway station was a dingy place of
cobwebbed murk. It was also the express office, and in helter-skelter
disarray lay a litter of uncalled-for plow-shares and such articles as
go from the end of the rails into that hinterland where lies an
isolated world of crag and loneliness.

Except for the operator--who was also ticket-agent and general
factotum--it was now empty and dull of light with its smeared window
glasses between its interior and the dispirited grayness of the outer
skies. The dust-covered papers and miscellany which cumbered the table
long undisturbed, spoke of an idle office and of hours unedged with
interest.

As Halloway's great bulk shadowed the door, Wicks glanced up, and
nodded with a somewhat surly unwelcome.

"Did ye want anything," he asked shortly.

"No, just loafin' 'round," drawled the visitor as he settled indolently
into a chair which creaked its complaint under his weight.

For a short while the two kept up a perfunctory semblance of
conversation, but between these interchanges of comment, lengthening
intervals elapsed.

Wicks sat inertly gazing at those familiar stains on the wall which
long familiarity had made hateful to him. His expression was moody and
only occasionally did he turn to glance at his unbidden guest.

Halloway's head had fallen forward on his chest and soon his heavy
breathing became that of a man who is napping.

Finally the other opened his key and sounded the call for Viper, a
hamlet ten miles away, though in practical effect it was more distant
since the road between twisted painfully over ridge and through gorge.
It was on an infrequently used freight spur but it boasted
communication with the world by wire--and it was important now because
it was a town through which Alexander must pass on her way from Coal
City to the mouth of Shoulder-blade Creek.

The metallic voice of the telegraph key subsided, and shortly came the
respons