“Pollard mentioned your seeing the stick-up man at Harte’s cabin.  Tell us about it.”

She told him swiftly, eager to have it over with, conscious that the eyes of all three of the men watched her with a very intense interest.  From her account she omitted only that which concerned her personally and alone and of which she had not even spoken to her uncle.

“You’re sure it was Thornton?” demanded the sheriff when she had finished.  “Dead sure?”

“Yes,” she answered resolutely, defiant of her own self that hesitated to fix on an absent man the crime of which she believed him guilty.

Dalton sat still save for the drumming of his thick fingers upon the table cloth.  Presently his big stocky body turned slowly in his chair as he looked from Broderick to Pollard, the hint of a smile merely making his eyes the harder.

“So,” he said, his wide shoulders rising to his deep breath, “it looks like all we got to do is just go out and put our rope on Mr. Badman!”

“It looks like it, Cole,” laughed Broderick gently.  “Only when you get ready to pull off your little roping party I wish you’d let me know.  He don’t look like he’s the kind to lie down and let you hog-tie him, does he, Miss Waverly?  They say he’s half Texan an’ the other half panther.  You want to be quick on the throw, Cole.  Remember the way he got the Kid last winter!”

“The only wonder,” growled Dalton, “is that the Kid hasn’t taken him off our hands and got him long ago!”

“But,” put in Winifred hastily, “they’re friends now.  Uncle Henry and I saw them talking together this afternoon.”

She saw the start that her words gave the sheriff, and turning toward Broderick glimpsed a look, steely and hard and glittering with suspicion that had driven the smile from his eyes.

“If Bedloe....” began Dalton sharply, his great fist clenched.  But he stopped short.  He saw and understood the warning glance Broderick shot at him; Winifred saw, too, but did not understand.

“Let’s go into the other room,” the miner said carelessly, “and see what Henry’s cigars are made out of.”

They rose and went back to Pollard’s office.  And Ben Broderick, who had suggested cigars, was the only one of the three men who rolled his own cigarette, rolled it slowly and with deep thoughtfulness.

CHAPTER XVII

SUSPICION

After all it seemed that for some reason the time was not yet ripe for Cole Dalton to put his rope on “Mr. Badman”.  For the days ran on smoothly for Buck Thornton, the weeks grew out of them and he rode, unmolested, unsuspicious of any threatened interference, about his own business.

He had gone a second time to the dugout at Poison Hole, carrying provisions enough to last Jimmie Clayton several days.  Clayton seemed assured that Bedloe would look out for him now and insisted that there was danger of some of the range hands learning of Thornton’s trips here.  So, for a week he did not ride near the man’s hiding place, and when one day he did visit the dugout again there was nothing to show that Clayton had been there and no hint of how or where he had gone.  Thornton felt a deep sense of relief, believing that the episode, so far as he was concerned, was closed.