s in jail for over a year,
and then she was set free, for her health went bad, and her mind was
going, they thought. She did not know till she come out that she was
divorced. Then she nearly died. But then Trevoor come."

Freddy Tarlton's hands were cold with excitement, and his fingers
trembled so he could hardly light a cigar.

"Go on, go on, Pierre," he said huskily.

"Trevoor said to her--he told me this himself--'Why did you not whistle
for me, Norice? A word would have brought me from Europe.' 'No one could
help me, no one at all,' she answered. Then Trevoor said, 'I know who
did it, for he has robbed me too.' She sank in a heap on the floor. 'I
could have borne it and anything for him, if he hadn't divorced me,'
she said. Then they cleared her name before the world. But where was the
man? No one knew. At last Malachi, in the Rocky Mountains, heard of her
trouble, for Norice wrote to him, but told him not to do the man any
harm, if he ever found him--ah, a woman, a woman!... But Malachi met the
man one day at Guidon Hill, and shot him in the street."

"Fargo the sheriff!" roared half-a-dozen voices. "Yes; he had changed
his name, had come up here, and because he was clever and spent money,
and had a pull on someone,--got it at cards perhaps,--he was made
sheriff."

"In God's name, why didn't Malachi speak?" said Tarlton; "why didn't he
tell me this?"

"Because he and I had our own plans. The one evidence he wanted was
Norice. If she would come to him in his danger, and in spite of his
killing the man, good. If not, then he would die. Well, I went to find
her and fetch her. I found her. There was no way to send word, so we had
to come on as fast as we could. We have come just in time."

"Do you mean to say, Pierre, that she's here?" said Gohawk.

Pierre waved his hand emphatically. "And so we came on with a pardon."

Every man was on his feet, every man's tongue was loosed, and each
ordered liquor for Pierre, and asked him where the girl was. Freddy
Tarlton wrung his hand, and called a boy to go to his rooms and bring
three bottles of wine, which he had kept for two years, to drink when he
had won his first big case.

Gohawk was importunate. "Where is the girl, Pierre?" he urged.

"Such a fool as you are, Gohawk! She is with her father."

A half-hour later, in a large sitting-room, Freddy Tarlton was making
eloquent toasts over the wine. As they all stood drinking to Pierre,
the door opened from the h