“And after Pooley was arrested,” contributed Racey Dawson, “the Piegan City marshal went through his safe and found the original of this agreement signed by Tweezy, Lanpher, and Harpe.”

Luke Tweezy held up his hand.  “One moment,” said he.  “Where was the agreement signed by Harpe, Pooley, and Lanpher found?”

“In yore safe,” replied Racey Dawson.

“Did you find it there?”

“Yep.”

“What were you doing at my safe?”

“Now don’t get excited, Luke.  I happened to be in the neighbourhood of yore house in Marysville about a month ago when I noticed one of yore back windows open.  I snooped in and there was Jack Harpe working on yore combination with Jakey Pooley watchin’ him.  Jack Harpe was the boy who opened the safe....  Huh?  Shore, I know him and Jakey Pooley sicked posses on my trail.  Why not?  They hadda cover their own tracks, didn’t they?  But that ain’t the point.  What I can’t help wondering is why Harpe and Pooley was fussin’ with the safe in the first place.  What do you guess, Luke?”

Evidently Tweezy knew the answer.  With a yelp of “Tried to cross me, you—!” he flung himself bodily upon Jack Harpe.

In a moment the two were rolling on the floor.  It required four men and seven minutes to pry them apart.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE END OF THE TRAIL

Molly Dale looked at Racey with adoring eyes.  “How on earth did you guess that the Bill Smith who robbed the Wells Fargo safe at Keeleyville and killed the agent was Jack Harpe?”

“Oh, that was nothing.  You see, I’d heard somebody say—­I disremember exactly who now—­that Jack Harpe’s real name was Bill Smith, that he’d shaved off his beard and part of his eyebrows to make himself look different, and that he’d done something against the law to some company in some town.  I didn’t know what company nor what town, but I had somethin’ to start with when McFluke was let loose.  I figured out by this, that, and the other that Jack Harpe had let McFluke loose.  Aw right, that showed Jack Harpe was a expert lock picker.  He showed us at Marysville that he was a expert on safe combinations.  Now there can’t be many men like that.  So I took what I knew about him to the detective chiefs of three railroads.  He’d done somethin’ against a company, do you see, and of course I went to three different railroad companies before I woke up and went to the Wells Fargo an’ found out that such a man as Jack Harpe named Bill Smith was wanted for the Keeleyville job.  So you see there wasn’t much to it.  It was all there waitin’ for somebody to find it.”

“But it lacked the somebody till you came along,” she told him with shining eyes.

“Shucks.”

“No shucks about it.  That we have our ranch to-day with a sure-enough producing gold mine in one corner of it is all due to you.”