me back."

"Good-night, Marion. Some one is at the cottage door."

"It is probably Mr. McCloud and Dicksie. I will let them in."

CHAPTER XXXVII

WICKWIRE

McCloud and Dicksie met them at the porch door. Marion, unnerved, went
directly to her room. Whispering Smith stopped to speak to Dicksie and
McCloud interposed. "Bob Scott telephoned the office just now he had a
man from Oroville who wanted to see you right away, Gordon," said he.
"I told him to send him over here. It is Wickwire."

"Wickwire," repeated Whispering Smith. "Wickwire has no business here
that I know of; no doubt it is something I ought to know of. And, by
the way, you ought to see this man," he said, turning again to
Dicksie. "If McCloud tells the story right, Wickwire is a sort of
protege of yours, Miss Dicksie, though neither of you seems to have
known it. He is the tramp cowboy who was smashed up in the wreck at
Smoky Creek. He is not a bad man, but whiskey, you know, beats some
decent men." A footstep fell on the porch. "There he comes now, I
reckon. Shall I let him in a minute?"

"Oh, I should like to see him! He has been at the ranch at different
times, you know."

Smith opened the door and stepping out on the porch, talked with the
new-comer. In a moment he brought him in. Dicksie had seated herself
on the sofa, McCloud stood in the doorway of the dining-room, and
Whispering Smith laid one arm on the table as he sat down beside it
with his face above the dark shade of the lamp. Before him stood
Wickwire. The half-light threw him up tall and dark, but it showed the
heavy shock of black hair falling over his forehead, and the broad,
thin face of a mountain man.

"He has just been telling me that Seagrue is loose," Whispering Smith
explained pleasantly. "Who turned the trick, Wickwire?"

"Sheriff Coon and a deputy jailer started with Seagrue for Medicine
Bend this morning. Coming through Horse Eye Canyon, Murray Sinclair
and Barney Rebstock got a clean drop on them, took Seagrue, and they
all rode off together. They didn't make any bones about it, either.
Their gang has got lots of friends over there, you know. They rode
into Atlantic City and stayed over an hour. Coon tracked them there
and got up a _posse_ of six men. The three were standing in front of
the bank when the sheriff rode into town. Sinclair and Seagrue got on
their horses and started off. Rebstock went back to get another
drink. When he came out of the saloon he