nt when you laid him by the heels?"

"That's so," Nick answered; "the best hoss I've ever bin astride of.
Yes, we waylaid him--middle of One Tree Gulch."

"Seems you expected him. You knew just where he'd been, an' what he'd
been up to. You expected him to ride through One Tree Gulch exactly at
that time?"

"No, your lordship," returned Nick; "I knew nothin' for sure. It was
no more'n a cute guess on my part, knowin' the man."

Kiddie turned and looked at Undrell very steadily.

"I'm very much afraid that you know more about this business than
you're likely to admit," he said. "You were in it yourself to some
extent. Perhaps you even went partners with him--eh?"

"What?" Nick showed genuine astonishment at the implied accusation.

"Walk right in," ordered Kiddie, when they were at the front door of
the cabin.

Isa Blagg started forward excitedly at Nick's unexpected entrance.

"Got him already!" he exclaimed. "That's smart, Kiddie--real smart."

"Wait, Isa, wait," retorted Kiddie. "I want to ask a few questions."

He reached round to his desk and laid a tobacco pipe on the table in
front of Nick Undrell.

"Is that yours?" he asked.

"Yes," said Nick, taking it up and turning it in his fingers, "it's
sure mine. Where'd you pick it up? Last time I see it 'twas on the
shelf at home in my shack. Been lying thar for months. Too good ter
throw away, not good enough ter smoke. How in thunder did it get here?"

"It was found in one of our canoes," explained Kiddie. "You are
supposed to have dropped it there and forgotten it."

"Never bin in one o' your canoes in all my life," Nick declared.

"Ever been in this room before?" pursued Kiddie.

"Never," Nick denied; "never been inside the door."

"Show me the soles of your boots," said Kiddie.

Nick lifted his feet for inspection. Kiddie looked at the smooth soles
inquiringly, nodded in satisfaction, and then leant forward and
carefully picked a thread of yellow worsted from Undrell's striped vest.

"How do you explain," he went on, "that we found a thread of this very
same yellow wool caught in the glass of that broken window? How do you
account for a thread of the same stuff bein' found fixed round one of
the claws of my dead hound?"

"Your dead hound!" repeated Nick, in genuine surprise. "Dead, d'ye
say? D'ye mean he killed it--shot it? My, I'm glad we captured
him--real glad, I am."

"What's that?" cried Isa Blagg. "Who d'ye mean?"