t?" asked Bissell, glaring at him savagely.

"I mean that he did not ask me what Caldwell actually did with the money I
gave him. He made you believe that Smithy used it for the rustlers with my
consent. That is a blamed lie!"

"What did he do with it?" cried Billy Speaker.

"Ask Stelton," shouted Bud, suddenly leaping out of his chair and
pointing an accusing finger at the foreman. "He seems to know so much
about everything, ask him!"

The foreman, dazed by the unexpected attack, turned a surprised and
harrowed countenance toward the men as he scrambled to his feet. He cast
quick, fearful glances in Larkin's direction, as though attempting to
discover how much of certain matters that young man actually knew.

"Ask him!" repeated Bud emphatically. "There's a fine man to listen to,
coming here with a larkum story that he can't follow up."

"Come on, Stelton, loosen yore jaw," suggested Billy Speaker. "What did
this here Caldwell do with the money?"

Stelton, his face black with a cloud of rage and disappointment, glared
from one to another of the men, who were eagerly awaiting his replies.
Larkin, watching him closely, saw again those quick, furtive flicks of the
eye in his direction, and the belief grew upon him that Stelton was
suspicious and afraid of something as yet undreamed of by the rest. Larkin
determined to remember the fact.

"I don't know what he done with the money," growled the foreman at last,
admitting his defeat.

"Why did you give Caldwell five hundred in the first place, Larkin?" asked
Bissell suddenly.

"That is a matter between himself and me only," answered Bud freezingly,
while at the same time he sat in fear and trembling that Stelton would
leap before the cowmen at this new cue and retail all the conversation of
that night at the corral.

But for some reason the foreman let the opportunity pass and Bud wondered
to himself what this sudden silence might mean.

He knew perfectly well that no gentle motive was responsible for the
fellow's attitude, and wrote the occurrence down on the tablets of his
memory for further consideration at a later date.

After this there was little left to be done. Stelton's testimony had
failed in its chief purpose, to compass the death of Larkin, but it had
not left him clear of the mark of suspicion and he himself had little idea
of absolute acquittal. Under the guard of his sharpshooting cow-puncher he
was led back to his room in the ranch house to awa