"Yes," she cried hotly as she remembered the insult of a kiss and in the
memory forgot the robbery itself.

"I'll get him now," he muttered. "Both ways; going and coming! Tell me
all about it, Winifred."

She began, speaking swiftly, telling him of her meeting with Thornton
at the bank, of her suspicion that he had overheard her talk with the
banker. Then of her second meeting with the man after she had seen him
on the trail behind her, the encounter at the Harte cabin.... A sudden
banging of the kitchen door, and he had stopped her abruptly, putting
his hand warningly upon her arm.

"Later. It can wait. That is Mrs. Riddell. She will show you to your
room. And it will be better, my dear, if you say nothing to her. Or to
any one else just yet."

She got to her feet and went to the door. Turning there, to smile back
at her uncle, she saw that his pillows had slipped a little and that
under them lay a heavy revolver. And she surprised upon the man's face a
look which was gone so quickly that she wondered if she had seen right
in the darkened room, a look so filled with malicious triumph. Instead
of being profoundly disturbed by the tidings of her adventure, the man
appeared positively to gloat.... Now, more than ever, did she regret
that she had come to the town of Dead Man's Alley.

CHAPTER XIII

THE RANCH ON BIG LITTLE RIVER

Buck Thornton had returned to the Poison Hole ranch. But first he had
ridden from the Smith place down the trail to Harte's, where he made
swift, careful search for some sign to tell him who was the man who had
lamed his horse maliciously and seemingly with no purpose to be gained.
Further, he had sought for tracks to tell him from where this man had
come, where he had gone. When he had found nothing he went, he hardly
knew why, to the cabin, pushed the door open and entered. And instead of
learning anything definitely now he was merely the more perplexed. By
the fireplace lay a chair, overturned. There had been some sort of
hurried movement here, perhaps a struggle. The table had been pushed to
one side, one leg catching in the rag rug and rumpling it. He struck a
match, lighted the lamp and sought for some explanation. When had this
struggle, if struggle there had been, occurred? It must have been after
he and Miss Waverly had set out on the trail to Smith's, he told himself
positively. Then there had been two people here in the meantime, for it
takes two people to make a tussel