t she don't aim
to view the corp' at all!"

Kincaid followed Mrs. Tutts's disapproving gaze.

That was the suspect! That slim, young girl with her delicately cut
features hardened to meet the concentrated gaze of a procession of
staring, unfriendly eyes? Why, as he glanced about him, she looked the
only lady in the room!

Essie sat with the feeling that ice had formed about her heart, trying
to bear unflinchingly the curious or sneering looks of those she had
known well enough to call by their first names. It was torture for the
sensitive girl who saw in each cold eye the thought that she had killed
a man--killed a human being--for money!

A feeling of overwhelming pity surged over Kincaid as he looked at her,
a feeling so strong that when she raised her eyes and gazed squarely
into his he wondered if he had spoken aloud. They were blue and
beautiful, her eyes, as two mountain forget-me-nots, like two bruised
flowers, he thought, that had been hurt to death. He could remember
having seen only one other pair like them.

An impulse so strong, a resolve so sudden and violent that it sent the
blood in a crimson wave above his collar and over his face seized him,
and he whispered to himself as he moved toward the door--

"I'll see her through, by George! I'll stand by her till there's skating
in the place that don't commonly freeze!"

XXIV

THE DAGO DUKE AND DAN TREU EXCHANGE CONFIDENCES

"They were shod horses and they were goin' some. See how deep the corks
sunk. Look at the length of the jumps." The sheriff followed the hoof
tracks with his eye until they turned at an angle and dropped into the
gulch.

"Pft!--like that--and they were gone," said the Dago Duke, with an
expressive gesture. "Over there, where I was reposing under the scant
shade of a sagebrush, I opened my eyes just in time to see the top of
their black hats disappear. Her buggy was turning the hill."

The sheriff stepped off the distance.

"Less than a hundred yards. She must have seen them plainly."

"Certainly; that's when they swung into the gulch."

"Well, sir, it gets me." With the admission the sheriff thrust his hands
deep in his trousers pockets and looked frankly nonplussed.

"She denied as plain as she could say it in English that she had seen or
met anybody and she'll probably do the same under oath."

"No doubt about it," replied the Dago Duke.

"But why should she?" demanded the sheriff in frowning perplexity. "I
c