dull mind might steal a ghost of suspicion. I'm
ready to take my turn now, though I hate the damned inactivity. I am a
presumed illiterate. I struggle over the printed page--and with me
loafing in his office he would chat away over his wire undisturbed."

"And what shall I be doing?"

"There'll be enough to keep you busy, I should say. Get in touch with
any of the bank employes you can locate. Try to learn whether or not
Alexander has actually started. Have Lute watched and see with whom he
talks. Get together a dozen men we can trust at a pinch. Have them
ready, if necessary, to take the saddle on a moment's notice. It may
come down to a race over the trail."

Brent's face fell.

"With my limited acquaintance," he objected, "how in God's name am I to
pick such men?"

"No man who looked into the dog-like eyes of young Bud Sellers,"
asserted Halloway, "could doubt that he'd give his life for that girl.
He can also keep his mouth tight. Tell him the whole story and take
his orders. I'm off now to sit on my shoulder blades in the telegraph
office."

About the post office loitered a small crowd drawn together by the
instinct for companionship and to that gathering place Brent turned
first in search of Bud.

It proved a happy choice and when he had, with a seeming of casualness,
led his man into a quieter spot he demanded, "What has become of
Alexander?"

He thought that the young mountaineer stiffened a bit and that his face
became mask-like. But this may have been the jealous tendency of a
hopeless passion, and when Brent swiftly narrated all that he and
Halloway had learned, the secretiveness of guise fell away from the
listening face and the body trembled as if stricken with a chill, but a
chill of rage and indignation which had no kinship with timorousness.

"Hit looks like hit would hev been safer an' handier fer Alexander jest
ter ride on back home with ther same crowd thet come down-river with
her--they're all got ter make ther same journey," was his first
comment, but after a moment he shook his head. "Howsomever, I reckon
thet they don't aim ter hasten back so damn fast. They hain't been in
a town fer a long spell an' they seeks ter tarry--an' quite several of
'em air fellers I mistrusts anyhow."

"Can't you pick out enough dependable men for an immediate start if
need be?"

Bud laughed shortly. "Did ye 'low, atter hearin' what ye jest narrated
that I'd be liable ter stand hitched fer