eriff's got a notion he's up in these hills
somewheres. A man answering his description was seen by some rancher.
But if you ask _me_, I'd say he was busy losing himself 'way off in
Routt County, clear off the map. He used to punch cows up there and he
knows all kinds of holes to hide in. It don't stand to reason he'd still
be fooling around here. He's bridle-wise and saddle-broke--knows every
turn of the road."

"Yes," Moya assented listlessly.

"He had his getaway all planned before ever he came down here. That's a
cinch. The fishing was all a bluff. The four of them had the hold-up
arranged weeks ago. They've gone into a hole and drawn it in after
them."

"Don't you think there's a chance he didn't do it?" she asked in a
forlorn way.

"Not a chance. Jack Kilmeny and Colter pulled off the play. What the
others had to do with it I don't know."

The deputy passed to the fishing in his conversation, hoped she would
have luck, stroked his white goatee, and presently departed.

The man had scarcely disappeared around a bend in the gulch before a
sound startled her. Moya turned quickly, to see a man drop down the face
of a large rock to the ground. Even before he turned she recognized that
pantherine grace and her heart lost a beat.

He came straight toward her, with the smile in his blue eyes that
claimed comradeship as a matter of course.

"You--here," she gasped.

"I'm here, neighbor. Where ought I to be--in Routt County losing
myself?"

Her little hand was lost in his big brown fist, her gaze locked in his.

"You heard him?"

"Couldn't help it. I was working down through that grove of pines to the
river when I saw him."

"He may come back." Her quick glance went up the gulch into which the
deputy had disappeared.

"I reckon not. Let's sit down and talk."

Her first thought had been of his danger, but she remembered something
else now. "No, I think not, Mr. Kilmeny."

The deep eyes that met his steadily had in them the rapier flash. He
smiled.

"Because I am a miscreant, I reckon," he drawled.

"You say it, not I."

"Now you're dodging, neighbor. You think it."

"If so, do I think more than the truth?"

A ripple of sardonic laughter stirred in him. "I see you have me
convicted and in the penitentiary already."

"Your actions convict you."

"So _you_ think. Isn't it just possible you don't understand them?"
There was the faintest hint of derision in his polite inquiry.

A light flashed in