rn the
luck!"

Bud turned quickly to Polly. "Did Jack pay off the mortgage last
week?" he almost shouted at the girl.

Polly stamped her foot in anger at what seemed to her to be a totally
irrelevant question to the love-making she expected: "How do I know?"
she angrily replied. "If that is all you came to see me for, you can
go and ask him. It makes me so dog-gone mad!"

Polly, with flushed face and knitted brow, left the bewildered Bud
standing in the center of the room, asking himself what it was all
about.

The sound of the voices of disputing men floated in from the corral.
Bud heard them, and comprehended its significance.

"It's all up with me," he cried, in mortal terror. "Buck McKee has
stirred up the suspicion against Jack Payson. Jack paid off his
mortgage, and they wanted to know where he raised the money. Well, Jack
can tell. If he can't, I'll confess the whole business. I won't let
him suffer for me. Buck sha'n't let an innocent man hang for what
we've done."

The sound of footsteps on the piazza and the opening of the door drove
Bud to take refuge in an adjoining room, where he could overhear all
that was happening. He closed the door as the cow-punchers entered
with Slim at their head.

CHAPTER XI

Accusation and Confession

Buck McKee had not been idle in the days following the slaying of 'Ole
Man' Terrill. Having learned that Slim and his posse had discovered
only the fact that the murderer had ridden a pacing horse to the ford,
McKee took full advantage of this fact. In the cow-camps, the
barrooms, and at the railroad-station he hinted, at first, that a
certain person every one knew could tell a lot more about the death of
the old man than he cared to have known. After a few days he began to
bring the name of Payson into the conversation. His gossip became
rumor, and then common report. When it became known that Jack had paid
off the mortgage on his ranch, Buck came out with the accusation that
Payson was the murderer. Finding that he was listened to, Buck made
the direct charge that Payson had killed the station-agent, and with
the proceeds of the robbery was paying off his old debts.

Gathering his own men about him, and being joined by the idle
hangers-on, which are to be found about every town, Buck lead his party
to the ranch on the Sweetwater to accuse Jack, and so throw off, in
advance, any suspicions which might attach to himself.

Fortunately, Slim happened