ining
it, forming an L, into the shadow of which Trevison slipped. He stood
there for an instant, breathing rapidly, undecided. The darkness in the
shadow was intense, and he was forced to feel his way along the wall for
fear of stumbling. He was leaning heavily on his hands, trusting to them
rather than to his footing, when the wall seemed to give way under them
and he fell forward, striking on his hands and knees. Fortunately, he had
made no sound in falling, and he remained in the kneeling position until
he got an idea of what had happened. He had fallen across the threshold of
a doorway. The door had been unfastened and the pressure of his hands had
forced it inward. It was the rear door of the bank building. He looked
inward, wondering at Braman's carelessness--and stared fixedly straight
into a beam of light that shone through a wedge-shaped crevice between two
boards in the partition that separated the buildings.

He got up silently, stepped stealthily into the room, closing the door
behind him. He tried to fasten it and discovered that the lock was broken.
For some time he stood, wondering, and then, giving it up, he made his way
cautiously around the room, searching for Braman's cot. He found that,
too, empty, and he decided that some one had broken into the building
during Braman's absence. Moving away from the cot, he stumbled against
something soft and yielding, and his pistol flashed into his hand in
sinister preparation, for he knew from the feel of the soft object that it
was a body, and he suspected that it was Braman, stalking him. He thought
that until he remembered the broken lock, on the door, and then the
significance of it burst upon him. Whoever had broken the lock had fixed
Braman. He knelt swiftly and ran his hands over the prone form, drawing
back at last with the low ejaculation: "He's a goner!" He had no time or
inclination to speculate over the manner of Braman's death, and made
catlike progress toward the crevice in the partition. Reaching it, he
dropped on his hands and knees and peered through. A wooden box on the
other side of the partition intervened, but above it he could see the form
of the deputy. The man was stretched out in a chair, sideways to the
crevice in the wall, sleeping. A grin of huge satisfaction spread over
Trevison's face.

His movements were very deliberate and cautious. But in a quarter of an
hour he had pulled the board out until an opening was made in the
partition