h which he covered Talpers, but the trader did not move.
The white-haired man deftly removed Talpers's revolver from its holster
and put it on the table. Then he searched the trader's pockets.

"I'm glad I didn't have to shoot this swine," he said to the girl.
"Another second and it would have been necessary. The letter isn't here,
but you can frighten him with these trinkets--his own revolver and this
watch which evidently he took from the murdered man on the hill. You
know what else of Edward Sargent's belongings were taken."

The girl nodded.

"He will recover soon," went on the gray-haired man. "You will be in no
further danger. He will be glad to go when he sees what evidence you
have against him."

The white-haired man had taken a watch from one of Talpers's pockets. He
put the timepiece on the table beside the trader's revolver. Then the
door to the adjoining room closed again, and the girl was alone with the
trader waiting for him to recover consciousness.

Soon Bill Talpers sat up. His hand went to his head and came away
covered with blood. The world was rocking, and the girl at the table
looked like half a dozen shapes in one.

"This is your own revolver pointed at you, Mr. Talpers," she said, "but
this watch on the table, by which you will leave this house in three
minutes, is not yours. It belonged once to Edward B. Sargent, and you
are the man who took it."

Talpers tried to answer, but could not at once.

"You not only took this watch," said the girl slowly, "but you took
money from that murdered man."

"It's all a lie," growled Bill at last.

"Wait till you hear the details. You took twenty-eight hundred dollars
in large bills, and three hundred dollars in smaller bills."

Talpers looked at the girl in mingled terror and amazement. Guilt was in
his face, and his fears made him forget his aching head.

"You kept this money and did not let your half-breed partner in crime
know you had found it," went on the girl. "Also you kept the watch, and,
as it had no mark of identification, you concluded you could safely wear
it."

Talpers struggled dizzily to his feet.

"It's all lies," he repeated. "I didn't kill that man."

"You might find it hard to convince a jury that you did not, with such
evidence against you."

The trader looked at the watch as if he intended to make a dash to
recover it, but the girl kept him steadily covered with his own
revolver. Muttering curses, and swaying uncertainl