he elusive pot of
gold this trip; I'm going for something far more important, on a little
private hunch of my own. You'll wish me luck, I know, old man?"

"I will indeed, whatever your hunch is," Winnie responded heartily.
"That stab in the back hasn't downed you, after all. I knew it
wouldn't, after you got your second wind! You look like a different
chap than you were an hour ago----"

"I feel it!" laughed the other, but again that undernote of grimness
rang in his tone. "It's done me a lot of good, this little talk with
you, Win. You'll never realize just how you've bucked me up."

Winnie puzzled over the significance of the last remark after he had
dropped his friend at the Park entrance and turned north again. Could
the stab in the back to which Thode referred have come from Starr
Wiley, and had their conversation given Thode a clue to a way of
striking back at his enemy? Not through Willa and the lost
inheritance, of course; that was a bona-fide discovery, even if Wiley
had been the instrument in bringing it to light. However, the fact
that Wiley had stumbled upon the documents while in Arizona might have
given Thode a lead on some ulterior project out there in which Wiley
was trying to cut the ground out from under his feet.

In going over their conversation in retrospect, an idea came which
Winnie determined impulsively to act upon. Willa's car had been
removed from the garage to which he had traced it, but that did not
necessarily mean that it had been taken to another. What if she had
sold the car, in preparation for a return to Mexico? He felt that she
must not go before he had seen her. Heretofore he had not, as he said,
intruded upon her retreat, but he could not bear the thought of her
departure without at least her knowing what he had to tell her.

He would go to her now, without giving her an opportunity to refuse to
see him! She might be angry, and Willa's anger was something to be
reckoned with, but he would make her hear him out!

Darkness had already fallen as he drew up before the neat little house
with its twin front doors. He rang the bell of the one to the right
and when the tall pleasant-faced woman appeared in answer to his
summons, he asked without hesitation for Miss Abercrombie.

The woman eyed him somewhat doubtfully, but ushered him into a tiny
immaculate parlor.

"Please, tell her it is Mr. Winthrop North. I haven't a card with me,
but be sure about the first name.