He went back into his cabin, put his two guns on the table, threw out the cartridges, and for fifteen minutes oiled and cleaned.  Then, with a careful eye to every shell, he loaded them again.  When he once more threw his door open and went outside his eyes were a little regretful but very, very hard.

He was inclined to believe that Winifred was mistaken in judging Ben Broderick’s to be the brains of this thing.  He thought that he saw Pollard’s hand directing.  Until now he had fully expected to go to Dry Town, to raise the four thousand five hundred dollars with which to make his last payment upon the Poison Hole ranch.  Now he more than suspected that this was but a play of Pollard’s to get him out of the way while the last crime be perpetrated, to have him out upon one of his lonely rides so that he could prove no alibi, perhaps even to rob him of the four thousand five hundred dollars before he could come with it to Hill’s Corners.  Now he made up his mind that he was not going to give Pollard this one last chance he wanted.  For, he felt convinced, if he did succeed in getting through with the money without a bullet in the back, and if he actually brought it to Pollard the latter would tell him that he had changed his mind, and so the rash act would have been done uselessly.  Having no way of holding Pollard to his bargain he had little wish to make the long ride to Dry Town and back.

Thornton for several days had planned to ride out to the borders of his range and see his cowboys, giving them full instructions for work to be done during the week which followed in case he should not be able to give more time to them.  Now, with a great deal to think about, he was not averse to a solitary day in the saddle.

Of late he had noted how the cinch of his working saddle was weakening; some of the strands had parted even.  He should mend it now, but he had no time to lose, and he did have another saddle, which he did not use twice during the year and which for months now he had not even seen.  He had put it out of the way, high up in the loft.  He went down to the barn meaning to get it and make the exchange.  If he was going to have some hard riding during the coming days it was as well if he used this saddle, the best he had ever seen.  Rather too ornate with its profuse silver chasings and carved leather for every day’s use, a heavy Mexican affair which he had won in a bronco “busting” competition down in Texas four years ago.

He came up into the loft, half filled with hay, and went to the far end where the saddle had hung upon its peg.  It was gone.  He stood staring at the peg in surprise.  Surely he had left it here, surely he had not removed it.  He tried to think when he had seen it last.  And he remembered.  It had been two or three months ago, and he knew that he had left it here, he even remembered the trouble he had had in drawing it up after him through the small trap door.  Now where was it?