The far away smile went out.  She was looking at him now with a sort of sad wonder.  “Do you know what I am?” she said gravely.

“I dunno,” said Ronicky, “and I don’t care.  What you do don’t count.  It’s the inside that matters, and the inside of you is all right.  Lady, so long as I can sling a gun, and so long as my name is Ronicky Doone, you ain’t going to marry the gent with the smile.”

If he expected an outbreak of protest from her he was mistaken.  For what she said was:  “Ronicky Doone!  Is that the name?  Ronicky Doone!” Then she smiled up at him.  “I’m within one ace of being foolish and saying—­But I won’t.”

She made a gesture of brushing a mist away from her and then stepped back a little.  “I’m going down to see the man with the smile, and I’m going to tell him that Harry Morgan is not in his room, that he didn’t answer my knock, and then that I looked around through the house and didn’t find him.  After that I’m coming back here, Ronicky Doone, and I’m going to try to get an opportunity for you to talk to Caroline Smith.”

“I knew you’d change your mind,” said Ronicky Doone.

“I’ll even tell you why,” she said.  “It isn’t for your friend who’s asleep, but it’s to give you a chance to finish this business and come to the end of this trail and go back to your own country.  Because, if you stay around here long, there’ll be trouble, a lot of trouble, Ronicky Doone.  Now stay here and wait for me.  If anyone taps at the door, you’d better slip into that closet in the corner.  Will you wait?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll trust me?”

“To the end of the trail, lady.”

She smiled at him again and was gone.

Now the house was perfectly hushed.  He went to the window and looked down to the quiet street with all its atmosphere of some old New England village and eternal peace.  It seemed impossible that in the house behind him there were—­

He caught his breath.  Somewhere in the house the muffled sound of a struggle rose.  He ran to the door, thinking of Ruth Tolliver at once, and then he shrank back again, for a door was slammed open, and a voice shouted—­the voice of a man:  “Help!  Harrison!  Lefty!  Jerry!”

Other voices answered far away; footfalls began to sound.  Ronicky Doone knew that Harry Morgan, his victim, had at last recovered and managed to work the cords off his feet or hands, or both.

Ronicky stepped back close to the door of the closet and waited.  It would mean a search, probably, this discovery that Morgan had been struck down in his own room by an unknown intruder.  And a search certainly would be started at once.  First there was confusion, and then a clear, musical man’s voice began to give orders:  “Harrison, take the cellar.  Lefty, go up to the roof.  The rest of you take the rooms one by one.”

The search was on.

“Don’t ask questions,” was the last instruction.  “When you see someone you don’t know, shoot on sight, and shoot to kill.  I’ll do the explaining to the police—­you know that.  Now scatter, and the man who brings him down I’ll remember.  Quick!”