Thornton read the short note again, frowning.  This girl, only a few nights ago, had called him a liar, had angered him as thoroughly as she knew how, had sent him from her vowing that he was a fool to have ever thought of her, and that he’d die before he’d be fool to seek again to see the niece of Henry Pollard.  And now this note, speaking of having wronged him, telling him that she was afraid to write all that she wanted to tell him, warning him of danger to him, asking him to meet her in Hill’s Corners ... at her uncle’s house ... at midnight!

He knew nothing of the danger to which she referred, but he did know that for him there was danger in going into Dead Man’s Alley even in broad daylight.  There came to him a swift suspicion that this note had never been written by the girl whose signature it bore, that it had been dictated by a man who sought to lure him to a spot where it would be an easy matter to put a bullet in him in safe, cowardly fashion.  Suppose that he went, that he entered Pollard’s place, and at such an hour?  Pollard, himself, could kill him, admit the deed and claim that he was but protecting his own premises.  Any one of the Bedloe boys could shoot him and who would know?

Another suspicion, allied to this one, came and darkened the frown in his eyes.  Was it possible that Winifred Waverly had written it, acting at Pollard’s command? that she was but doing the sort of thing he should look to one of Pollard’s blood to do?

Comstock, saying nothing further, now seemed entirely engrossed in his cigar.  Thornton, the note in his fingers, hesitated.  A third time he read the pencilled words.  Then he folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket.

“If a man wants to know anything real bad,” he said at last, “it’s up to him to go and find out, huh, Billy Comstock?”

Comstock, turning his cigar thoughtfully, answered: 

“That’s right, Buck.”

Thornton glanced at his little alarm clock.  It was not yet half past eight.

“I’ve got to be in the Corners by twelve o’clock,” he said as he went back to his chair.  “I’ll ride Comet, though, and can make it handily in two hours.  Now, what’s the line of talk?”

Comstock’s look trailed back to his cigar.

“I’m after a man,” he volunteered.

“That’s a safe bet.  What man?”

“Not poor little Jimmie Clayton,” smiled Comstock.  “He’s only a weak little fool at the worst, and wouldn’t be a bad sort if he had somebody around all the time to steer him right.”

“Who is he?” retorted Thornton steadily ... remembering.

“He’s the man you owe a debt of gratitude to,” laughed Comstock.  “He put some bullets through you one night down Texas way, found that he’d slipped up and that you’d put your money into a check, and then played safe by nursing you through it!  The man who broke jail a month or so ago, and beat it up here to you to see him through.  I’m not after him.”