n a conciliatory tone. "This true 'bout
your losin'----"

"Yes, it's true; but I ain't askin' your sympathy!"

He stopped short and frowned.

"Course not, when you can get his." Under his slouch-hat he glowered at
the Colonel.

Maudie broke into a volley of abuse. The very air smelt of brimstone.
When finally, through sheer exhaustion, she dropped on the side of the
bed, the devil prompted French Charlie to respond in kind. She jumped
up and turned suddenly round upon Corey, speaking in a voice quite
different, low and hoarse: "You asked me, Judge, if anybody knew where
I kept my stuff. Charlie did."

The Canadian stopped in the middle of a lurid remark and stared
stupidly. The buzz died away. The cabin was strangely still.

"Wasn't you along with the rest up to Idaho Bar?" inquired the Judge in
a friendly voice.

"Y-yes."

"Not when we all were! No!" Maudie's tear-washed eyes were regaining a
dangerous brightness. "I wanted him to come with me. He wouldn't, and
we quarrelled."

"We didn't."

"You didn't quarrel?" put in the Judge.

"We did," said Maudie, breathless.

"Not about that. It was because she wanted another feller to come,
too." Again he shot an angry glance at the Kentuckian.

"And Charlie said if I gave the other feller the tip, he wouldn't come.
And he'd get even with me, if it took a leg!"

"Well, it looks like he done it."

"Can't you prove an alibi? Thought you said you was along with the rest
to Idaho Bar?" suggested Windy Jim.

"So I was."

"I didn't see you," Maudie flashed.

"When were you there?" asked the Judge.

"Last night."

"Oh, yes! When everybody else was comin' home. You all know if that's
the time Charlie usually goes on a stampede!"

"You----"

If words could slay, Maudie would have dropped dead, riddled with a
dozen mortal wounds. But she lived to reply in kind. Charlie's
abandonment of coherent defence was against him. While he wallowed
blindly in a mire of offensive epithet, his fellow-citizens came to
dark conclusions. He had an old score to pay off against Maudie, they
all knew that. Had he chosen this way? What other so effectual? He
might even say most of that dust was his, anyway. But it was an
alarming precedent. The fire of Maudie's excitement had caught and
spread. Eve the less inflammable muttered darkly that it was all up
with Minook, if a person couldn't go on a stampede without havin' his
dust took out of his cabin. The crowd was pressing Cha