most friendly. He followed him now in wonder.

"You are sure this is the man, Bear Chief?"

The Indian had stepped forward at their entrance.

"Yas, I know him," he reiterated.

McArthur looked from one to the other.

"Bear Chief accuses you of stealing his horses, Mr. McArthur," explained
Ralston bluntly.

"What!"

"You slick little horse-thief, but I see you good. Where you cache my
race-pony?" The Indian's demand was a threat.

For reply, McArthur walked over and sat down on the edge of a bunk, as if
his legs of a sudden were too weak to support him.

"Bear Chief swears he saw you, McArthur." Ralston's tone was not
unfriendly now, for something within him pleaded the bug-hunter's cause
with irritating persistence.

"Me a horse-thief? Running off race-ponies?" McArthur found himself able
to exclaim at last: "But I had no horse of my own!"

"Have you any credentials--anything at all by which we can identify you?"

"Not with me; but certainly I can furnish them. The name of McArthur is
not unknown in Connecticut," he answered with a tinge of pride.

"Where are your riding-breeches? Bear Chief says you were wearing them
yesterday. Can you produce them now?"

McArthur, with hauteur, walked to the nails where his wardrobe hung and
fumbled among the clothing.

They were gone!

His jaw dropped, and a slight pallor overspread his face.

Susie, who had been listening from the doorway, flung a flour-sack at his
feet.

"Search my trunk, pardner," she said with her old-time impish grin.

McArthur mechanically did as she bade him, and his riding-breeches dropped
from the sack.

"I hope you'll 'scuse me for makin' so free with your clothes, like," she
said, "but I just naturally had to have them yesterday."

A light broke in upon Ralston.

"You!"

"Yep, I did it, me--Susie." Her tone and manner were a ludicrous imitation
of Smith's. She added: "I saw you all pikin' in here, so I tagged."

"But why"--Ralston stared at her in incredulity--"why should _you_ steal
horses?"

"It's this way," Susie explained, in a loud, confidential whisper: "I've
been playin' a little game of my own. When the right time came, I meant to
let Mr. Ralston in on it, but when Bear Chief saw me, I knew I'd have to
tell, to keep my pardner here from gettin' the blame."

"But the beard,"--Ralston still looked sceptical.

"Shucks! That's easy. I saw Bear Chief before he saw me, and I just took
the black silk hankerchief from my