r--can I find you to-morrow?" he said,
helplessly, holding the paper out at her.

"I have told you all I know," said Mrs. Sproud, and was gone at once.

Major Pidcock leaned back for some moments as we drove. Then he began
folding his paper with care. "I have not done with that person," said
he, attempting to restore his crippled importance. "She will find that
she must explain herself."

Our wheels whirled in the sand and we came quickly to Thomas, to a crowd
of waiting officers and ladies; and each of us had an audience that
night--the cook, I feel sure, while I myself was of an importance second
only to the Major's. But he was at once closeted with the commanding
officer, and I did not learn their counsels, hearing only at breakfast
that the first step was taken. The detail sent out had returned from
the hay-stack, bringing gold indeed--one-half sackful. The other six
were gone, and so was Mrs. Sproud. It was useless to surmise, as we,
however, did that whole forenoon, what any of this might mean; but in
the afternoon came a sign. A citizen of the Gila Valley had been paying
his many debts at the saloon and through the neighborhood in gold. In
one well known for the past two years to be without a penny it was the
wrong moment to choose for honest affluence, and this citizen was the
first arrest. This further instance of how secure the robbers felt
themselves to be outdid anything that had happened yet, and I marvelled
until following events took from me the power of astonishment. The men
named on Mrs. Sproud's paper were fewer than I think fired upon us in
the attack, but every one of them was here in the valley, going about
his business. Most were with the same herd of cattle that I had seen
driven by yellow and black curly near the sub-agency, and they two were
there. The solvent debtor, I should say, was not arrested this morning.
Plans that I, of course, had no part in delayed matters, I suppose for
the sake of certainty. Black curly and his friends were watched, and
found to be spending no gold yet; and since they did not show sign of
leaving the region, but continued with their cattle, I imagine every
effort was being made to light upon their hidden treasure. But their
time came, and soon after it mine. Stirling, my friend, to whom I had
finally gone at Carlos, opened the wire door of his quarters where I sat
one morning, and with a heartless smile introduced me to a gentleman
from Tucson.

"You'll have a c