, furiously. "And I
didn't have sense enough to search him for a knife!"

Outside, he met O'Grady and Johnson, sketchily dressed and wrathful.

"You heard him, too, did you?" he growled. "He got out by the window. This
is some of his work," he continued, pointing to Yellow.

"He did not," said O'Grady, promptly. "Did you ever hear of a guy jumping
out of a second-story winder and shutting it after him?"

"What?"

"Sure--it's shut," grinned Johnson. "He come out of the door all right.
It's wide open, and not hurt, either."

"Who let him out? Where's the key? You had it, O'Grady."

"I did not--you handed it to the girl, yourself. She locked him in all
right; I heard her do it," replied O'Grady quickly.

"That explains it," said Scott, shortly. "She came over here and let him
out. Might have expected it, I suppose, with a flighty youngster and a
smooth talker like Pachuca." He turned away in the direction of the
house.

"He's mad!" murmured Johnson, admiringly. He liked a little excitement
himself.

"Mad? He's jealous, the fool!" Matt offered, disgustedly.

"Jealous? Who of? The greaser?"

"Sure. Good-looking, Juan is, and a winner with the dames."

"Scott's one of them woman haters. What d'ye mean--jealous?"

"Woman haters?" Matt spat disdainfully. "There ain't no such thing as a
woman hater, Tommy, in the whole animal kingdom. Don't you fall for none
of that stuff. But, believe me, that girl never opened that door. She's a
straight, honest, smart girl, if she is flighty."

"Well, if she didn't, who did?"

"I don't know. I ain't sleuthed around enough yet to find out. Hullo,
here's Boston--half asleep, too."

Scott was angry clear through. He did not stop to analyze his emotions--he
was not of an analytical mind--and he did not care why he was angry. He
felt that Polly Street, a girl of whom he was beginning to think rather
highly, had done an unsportsmanlike thing; a thing that Bob's sister ought
to have been ashamed to do; had disgraced the family, so to speak, and had
seriously inconvenienced him into the bargain.

Scott had depended on that automobile for various things. He wanted it to
fetch a doctor for Jimmy, and to take Polly, herself, to the border in
comfort. Both these important things she had jeopardized because she had
been coaxed into it by a soft-spoken young man with dark eyes. The
treasure story he put aside. Even a girl from the East would hardly have
taken that stuff seriously, he