“Found it in Alec Howard’s cabin.  Seems your coat was hanging over the back of a chair, lieutenant, and this and a paper fell out.  One of the boys must have kicked it to one side, and it was overlooked.  Later, I ran across it.  So I’m bringing it back to you.”

In spite of herself Arlie’s eyes fell to the photograph.  It was a snapshot of the ranger and a very attractive young woman.  They were smiling into each other’s eyes with a manner of perfect and friendly understanding.  To see it gave Arlie a pang.  Flushing at her mistake, she turned the card over and handed it to the owner.

“Sorry.  I looked without thinking,” she said in a low voice.

Fraser nodded his acceptance of her apology, but his words and his eyes were for his enemy.  “You mentioned something else you had found, seems to me.”

Behind drooping eyelids Jed was malevolently feline.  “Seems to me I did.”

From his pocket came slowly a folded paper.  He opened and looked it over at leisure before his mocking eyes lifted again to the wounded man.  “This belongs to you, too, but I know you’ll excuse me if I keep it to show to the boys before returning it.”

“So you’ve read it,” Arlie broke in scornfully.

He grinned at her, and nodded.  “Yes, I’ve read it, my dear.  I had to read it, to find out whose it was.  Taken by and large, it’s a right interesting document, too.”

He smiled at the ranger maliciously, yet with a certain catlike pleasure in tormenting his victim.  Arlie began to feel a tightening of her throat, a sinking of the heart.  But Fraser looked at the man with a quiet, scornful steadfastness.  He knew what was coming, and had decided upon his course.

“Seems to be a kind of map, lieutenant.  Here’s Gimlet Butte and the Half Way House and Sweetwater Dam and the blasted pine.  Looks like it might be a map from the Butte to this part of the country.  Eh, Mr. Fraser from Texas?”

“And if it is?”

“Then I should have to ask you how you come by it, seeing as the map is drawn on Sheriff Brandt’s official stationery,” Jed rasped swiftly.

“I got it from Sheriff Brandt, Mr. Briscoe, since you want to know.  You’re not entitled to the information, but I’ll make you a gift of it.  He gave it to me to guide me here.”

Even Briscoe was taken aback.  He had expected evasion, denial, anything but a bold acceptance of his challenge.  His foe watched the wariness settle upon him by the narrowing of his eyes.

“So the sheriff knew you were coming?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you broke jail.  That was the story I had dished up to me.”

“I did, with the help of the sheriff.”

“Oh, with the help of the sheriff?  Come to think of it, that sounds right funny—­ a sheriff helping his prisoner to escape.”

“Yet it is true, as it happens.”

“I don’t doubt it, lieutenant.  Fact is, I had some such notion all the time.  Now, I wonder why-for he took so friendly an interest in you.”