* * * * *

In the meantime certain events of more importance than the passing of Hanson, to those involved, were taking place in Mrs. Nitschkan’s cabin.  As soon as Gallito had left the mine and taken his way up to Seagreave’s Jose also had departed from his cell by way of the ravine and had hastened to the abode of Mrs. Nitschkan, where he and Mrs. Thomas were soon absorbed in the composition of various appetizing dishes, for with the connivance of the two women Jose hoped that evening again to subjugate Gallito with the spell of his cookery, and win back the indulgence he had been steadily losing.

The afternoon, then, was passing most pleasantly for both Mrs. Thomas and himself when suddenly the door was flung open and Mrs. Nitschkan, who had been fishing in a creek further down the hill, came dashing in.

“Jose,” she cried, “the Sheriff and his boys is all out after you again.  There’s nobody else they’d want up this way.  They couldn’t keep under cover all the way, for they had to cross the bridge, and I happened to see ’em then.  Get out quick through the trees for Harry’s cabin.”

“But I don’t know the secret trail.”

“Gallito does.  Anyway, cut for it an’ maybe I can throw them off the scent.  Gosh a’mighty!  Cut for it.  They’re here.”

With one last, hasty kiss on Mrs. Thomas’ cheek, Jose was out of the door like a flash.

“Now quick, Marthy.”  Mrs. Nitschkan had seized a pair of scissors and cut the pocket from her skirt, tucking the roll of bills which it contained into her man’s boot.  “Cry, Marthy, cry like you never cried before.  Go on, I say.  Yelpin’s your strong suit.  Now yelp.”

With that she fell to swearing lustily herself and throwing the furniture about, even turning the stove over and sending a great shower of soot about the room.

At the height of all this noise and confusion, dominated, it must be said, by Mrs. Thomas’s loud and, to do her justice, sincere weeping, there came a thunderous knocking on the door, and without waiting to have it answered the sheriff threw it open and stepped in.

“Holy smoke!” he cried.  “What you knockin’ down the cook-stove for?”

“‘Cause I’m fightin’ mad, that’s why,” returned Mrs. Nitschkan tartly, “and I sure am glad to see you.  I been robbed, that’s what.  Ain’t that so, Marthy?”

Mrs. Thomas lifted her tear-stained face and corroborated this with mournful nods.

“Whilst I was takin’ a little nap,” went on Mrs. Nitschkan excitedly, “a rascal brother of Gallito’s who shouldn’t never have been let out of jail cut the pocket clean out of my skirt and stole my roll.  Look here!” exhibiting the jagged hole, and also the empty pocket which lay upon the floor, “I just waked up to find him gone.  He can’t have got far, though.  I guess he thinks I ain’t on to that rock chamber Gallito blasted out for him in the Mont d’Or, but he showed it to Marthy here, and she showed it to me.  Come on, and we’ll get down there quick.”