was ardent enough to please even Aggie.

He sat without speaking for a time, and none of us liked to interrupt
him. Outside it had stopped raining, and the moon was coming up over the
Camel's Back. We could hear Modestine stirring in the thicket and a
watery ray of moonlight came into the cave and threw our shadows against
the wall.

"If only," said Sheriff Muldoon thoughtfully--"If only I could get my
hands on that chap with the red beard!"

We all went to bed soon after. Aggie, as usual, went to sleep at once,
and soon, from, behind the kimono screen across the cave, loud noises
told us that Mr. Muldoon also slept. It was then that Tish crept over
and put her mouth to my ear.

"That may be Muldoon all right," she whispered. "But if it is he's got a
wife and two children. Mrs. Muldoon is related to Hannah."

IV

Somehow, with the morning our suspicions, if we had any, vanished. Mr.
Muldoon had been up at dawn, and when we wakened he had already brought
water from a near-by spring and was boiling some in the teakettle.

Seen by daylight, he was very good-looking. He had blue eyes with black
lashes and dark-brown hair, and a habit of getting up when any of us did
that kept him on his feet most of the time. His limp was rather
better--or his ankle.

"That's what a little mothering has done for me," he said gayly, over
his coffee and mackerel. "It's a long time since I've had any one to do
anything like that for me."

"But surely your wife----" began Tish. He started and changed color. We
all saw it.

"My wife!"

"You've got a wife and two children, haven't you?"

He looked at us all and drew a long breath.

"Ladies," he said, "I see some of my painful history is known to you.
May I ask--is it too much to beg--that--that we do not discuss that
part of my life?"

Tish apologized at once. We could not tell, from what he said, whether
he had been divorced or had lost them all from scarlet fever. Whichever
it was, I must say he was not depressed for very long, although he had
reason enough for depression, as we soon learned.

"It's like this," he said. "They know I'm here in the glen--the outlaws,
I mean. The red-bearded man, Naysmith, has sworn to get me."

"Get you?" from Aggie.

"Shoot me. The other three all owe me grudges, too, but Naysmith's the
worst. He's just out of the pen--I got him a ten-year sentence for this
very thing, robbing an express car."

"Ten years!" I exclaimed. "You look as if