nd her voice trembled.

"Oh, Phil!--I couldn't--I just couldn't! If I did, I should be leaving
part of me behind."

He stooped and kissed her.

"And you won't, sweetheart;--not if I know it!"

A streak of dust rose from the roadway and an automobile turned
quickly in to the avenue.

"Here comes the doctor, Phil, to see daddy."

"I'll be off then, girlie! I'll 'phone later to find out how he is
progressing."

CHAPTER XXV

The Bank Robbery

Phil was sound asleep in bed when a noise of some kind brought him
partly back to sensibility. He turned uneasily. The noise came again.
Someone was throwing gravel up at his window. He jumped out of bed,
pulled out the sliding screen-window and looked over.

A man on horseback was below.

"That you, Phil?"

"Yes!"

The horseman was Howden, the recently promoted Police Chief.

"Big things doing! If you're game for a night ride, wake Jim and both
of you come down quick. We're shy of men and you two have a pair of
good horses."

"What is it?"

"Tell you when you come. Bring a gun, and hurry, for every minute
counts."

Phil went to Jim's room across the passage. Jim, ever ready for an
adventure, was on the floor in a second; and both were dressed and
downstairs in five minutes.

"Won't a car take us quicker?"

"No!" replied Howden. "It is likely to be a chase over the ranges."

They saddled their horses and lined up on each side of the Police
Chief, who immediately started off.

"Cattle thieves?" asked Jim.

"Worse'n that! The Commercial Bank's been broken into, the safe blowed
up and every blamed bill in the institootion pinched."

"Well, I'll be-darned!"

"Just our blasted luck, too!" said Howden quickly and in excitement as
they trotted on, "Jamieson, my deputy, is in Vancouver, sick; Hardie
went to Kamloops yesterday with a couple of prisoners. There is hardly
a real policeman in town,--only me, Downie and McConnachie.

"The Mayor left on the train two days ago for the Coast.

"Downie, who for once wasn't boozed, noticed someone slip over the
back window at the Bank. There were half a dozen of them in the lane,
he says. He couldn't do a thing but watch. Three of them took off by
the B.X. way on horseback; two of them made for the Coldcreek Road,
and the other two made for the Okanagan Landing. Downie thinks there
is another, but he isn't sure."

"Where are they all now?" asked Jim.

"Tell you later.

"We've to go up along the Kelowna R