mewhere, waiting his chance to grab our
gold and incriminate Paulette, as common sense told me she expected. I
was sure as death he had a gang somewhere, for no outsider would try to
run that business alone; Collins and Dunn might have been on their way
to join it the night they got scuppered, very likely: they were just
devils enough. But if they had started out to meet Hutton at my corduroy
road they had never got there, and I was pretty sure the rest of the
gang hadn't either, and Hutton--alone--had been scared to shoot at us
and give himself away.

That thought assured me of two things. It was Dunn and Collins who had
hidden the wolf bait in my wagon, for Hutton could never have done it
and reached the corduroy road before us; and Paulette must really hate
Hutton savagely, for she must have known whom she was shooting at on my
swamp road! That made me feel better--a little--but there was something
I wanted to know. I turned on Dudley for it.

"Look here, I never heard anything about Valenka but newspapers'
stories, till to-night. But, if you know the inside of the business, how
did that cousin Macartney was talking of ever get hold of that emerald
necklace? Didn't Macartney imply he was in British Columbia?"

"He was more likely anywhere than where he'd have to work--if he could
get money out of a girl," Dudley snapped. "What I think is that he was
masquerading as a servant in the Houstons' house--a chauffeur,
perhaps--anything, that would let him hang round and drive a girl half
wild. He was a plain skunk. I don't know how he managed the thing, but I
know he was there in the Houstons' house, somehow, if Paulette doesn't
think so"--he forgot all about the Valenka--"and that he took those
emeralds; left the girl powerless even to think so; and disappeared. I
never saw him; don't even know what he looks like. But if ever I get a
chance I'll hand him over to the law as I'd hand a man I caught throwing
a bomb at a child!"

I said involuntarily: "Shut up!" I knew it was silly, but I felt as if
walls might have ears in a house that sheltered Paulette Brown,--though
I knew Marcia was in bed and asleep, and there was no one else who could
hear. "You're never likely to see him here, anyhow," I added, since I
meant to see him myself first, somehow; after which I trusted he was not
likely to matter. And I thought of something to change the subject.
"What were you going to say to-night about no one having seen poor old
Thom