d walk into the street."

Kirby wasted no more time. He knew that the man who had tried to
murder him had long since made good his getaway by means of the
fifth-story bridge between the buildings.

As he walked back to the hotel where he was stopping his eyes and ears
were busy. He took no dark-alley chances, but headed for the bright
lights of the main streets where he would be safe from any possibility
of a second ambush.

His brain was as busy as his eyes. Who had planned this attempt on his
life and so nearly carried it to success? Of one thing he was sure.
The assassin who had flung the shots at him down the narrow stairway of
the Denmark was the one who had murdered his uncle. The motive for the
ambuscade was fear. Kirby was too hot on the trail that might send him
to the gallows. The man had decided to play safe by following the old
theory that dead men tell no tales.

CHAPTER XXXII

JACK TAKES OFF HIS COAT

Afterward, when Kirby Lane looked back upon the weeks spent in Denver
trying to clear up the mysteries which surrounded the whole affair of
his uncle's death, it seemed to him that he had been at times
incredibly stupid. Nowhere did this accent itself so much as in that
part of the tangle which related to Esther McLean.

From time to time Kirby saw Cole. He was in and out of town. Most of
his time was spent running down faint trails which spun themselves out
and became lost in the hills. The champion rough rider was indomitably
resolute in his intention of finding her. There were times when Rose
began to fear that her little sister was lost to her for always. But
Sanborn never shared this feeling.

"You wait. I'll find her," he promised. "An' if I can lay my hands on
the man that's done her a meanness, I'll certainly give them hospital
sharks a job patchin' him up." His gentle eyes had frozen, and the
cold, hard light in them was almost deadly.

Kirby could not get it out of his head that James was responsible for
the disappearance of the girl. Yet he could not find a motive that
would justify so much trouble on his cousin's part.

He was at a moving-picture house on Curtis Street with Rose when the
explanation popped into his mind. They were watching an old-fashioned
melodrama in which the villain's letter is laid at the door of the
unfortunate hero.

Kirby leaned toward Rose in the darkness and whispered, "Let's go."

"Go where?" she wanted to know in surprise. They h