s ago he had made his "pile" in the
Yukon country and that he had lost it in unwise speculation, that he
knew more than the names of the streets of the chief cities of both
coasts, that he had strong hopes of making a strike where he was and of
selling out at a good figure to a mining concern with which he was
already corresponding. And yet this light miscellany of information was
so brightly sprinkled into the flow of talk upon a score of other
matters that it did not seem that the man was ever talking of himself.

Finally Pollard, catching a sharp look from Sheriff Dalton, got up and
stepped into the kitchen where Mrs. Riddell was. The woman went out into
the yard and Pollard came back. Before he had taken his chair again
Dalton said abruptly, turning upon the girl:

"Pollard mentioned your seeing the stick-up man at Harte's cabin. Tell
us about it."

She told him swiftly, eager to have it over with, conscious that the
eyes of all three of the men watched her with a very intense interest.
From her account she omitted only that which concerned her personally
and alone and of which she had not even spoken to her uncle.

"You're sure it was Thornton?" demanded the sheriff when she had
finished. "Dead sure?"

"Yes," she answered resolutely, defiant of her own self that hesitated
to fix on an absent man the crime of which she believed him guilty.

Dalton sat still save for the drumming of his thick fingers upon the
table cloth. Presently his big stocky body turned slowly in his chair as
he looked from Broderick to Pollard, the hint of a smile merely making
his eyes the harder.

"So," he said, his wide shoulders rising to his deep breath, "it looks
like all we got to do is just go out and put our rope on Mr. Badman!"

"It looks like it, Cole," laughed Broderick gently. "Only when you get
ready to pull off your little roping party I wish you'd let me know. He
don't look like he's the kind to lie down and let you hog-tie him, does
he, Miss Waverly? They say he's half Texan an' the other half panther.
You want to be quick on the throw, Cole. Remember the way he got the Kid
last winter!"

"The only wonder," growled Dalton, "is that the Kid hasn't taken him off
our hands and got him long ago!"

"But," put in Winifred hastily, "they're friends now. Uncle Henry and I
saw them talking together this afternoon."

She saw the start that her words gave the sheriff, and turning toward
Broderick glimpsed a look, steely and h