being in the same house with--with that!" She pointed to
the kitchen.

"All right," Owen said resignedly; "we'll both go. What did you do
with the money?"

Mary disclosed the hiding place, and Owen took the money, carried it to
the bunkhouse, where he stuffed it into the bottom of a tin food box.
Then, hurriedly, he saddled and bridled two horses and led them to
where Mary was waiting on the porch.

Mounting, they rode fast toward Okar--the little man's face working
nervously, a great eagerness in his heart to help the man for whom he
had conceived a deep affection.

Banker Maison had made no mistake when he had told Sanderson that Judge
Graney was honest. Graney looked honest. There was about him an
atmosphere of straightforwardness that was unmistakable and convincing.
It was because he was honest that a certain governor had sent him to
Okar.

And Graney had vindicated the governor's faith in him. Whenever crime
and dishonesty raised their heads in Okar, Judge Graney pinned them to
the wall with the sword of justice, and called upon all men to come and
look upon his deeds.

Maison, Silverthorn, and Dale--and others of their ilk--seldom called
upon the judge for advice. They knew he did not deal in their kind.
Through some underground channel they had secured a deputyship for
Dale, and upon him they depended for whatever law they needed to
further their schemes.

Judge Graney was fifty--the age of experience. He knew something of
men himself. And on the night that Maison and Sanderson had come to
him, he thought he had seen in Sanderson's eyes a cold menace, a
threat, that meant nothing less than death for the banker, if the
latter had refused to write the bill of sale.

For, of course, the judge knew that the banker was being forced to make
out the bill of sale. He knew that from the cold determination and
alert watchfulness in Sanderson's eyes; he saw it in the white
nervousness of the banker.

And yet it was not his business to interfere, or to refuse to attest
the signatures of the men. He had asked Maison to take the oath, and
the banker had taken it.

Thus it seemed he had entered into the contract in good faith. If he
had not, and there was something wrong about the deal, Maison had
recourse to the law, and the judge would have aided him.

But nothing had come of it; Maison had said nothing, had lodged no
complaint.

But the judge had kept the case in mind.

Late in the afternoon