f he catches Baumberger," Miss Georgie averred, gloomily.
"I tried a little detective work on my own account. I hadn't any right;
it was about the cipher messages Saunders used to send and receive
so often before your place was jumped. I was dead sure it was old
Baumberger at the other end, and I--well, I struck up a mild sort of
flirtation with the operator at Shoshone." She smiled deprecatingly at
Peaceful.

"I wanted to find out--and I did by writing a nice letter or two;
we have to be pretty cute about what we send over the wires," she
explained, "though we do talk back and forth quite a lot, too. There was
a news-agent and cigar man--you know that kind of joint, where they
sell paper novels and magazines and tobacco and such--getting Saunders'
messages. Jim Wakely is his name. He told the operator that he and
Saunders were just practicing; they were going to be detectives, he
said, and rigged up a cipher that they were learning together so they
wouldn't need any codebook. Pretty thin that--but you can't prove it
wasn't the truth. I managed to find out that Baumberger buys cigars and
papers of Jim Wakely sometimes; not always, though."

Miss Georgie laughed ruefully, and patted her pompadour absent-mindedly.

"So all I got out of that," she finished, "was a correspondence I could
very well do without. I've been trying to quarrel with that operator
ever since, but he's so darned easy-tempered!" She went and looked out
of the window again uneasily.

"He's guzzling beer over there, and from the look of him he's had a good
deal more than he needs already," she informed Peaceful. "He'll burst
if he keeps on. I suppose I shouldn't keep you any longer--he's looking
this way pretty often, I notice; nothing but the beer-keg holds him, I
imagine. And when he empties that--" She shrugged her shoulders, and sat
down facing Hart.

"Maybe you could bribe Jim Wakely into giving something away," she
suggested. "I'd sure like to see Baumberger stub his toe in this deal!
Or maybe you could get around one of those eight beauties you've got
camping down on your ranch--but there isn't much chance of that; he
probably took good care to pick clams for that job. And Saunders," she
added slowly, "is eternally silent. Well, I hope in mercy you'll be able
to catch him napping, Mr. Hart."

Peaceful rose stiffly,--and took up his hat from where he had laid it on
the table.

"I ain't as hopeful as I was a week ago," he admitted mildly. "