al. Furthermore, it opened a new field for surmise. _Brill Healy
said that he had seen the horse with a wound in its flank._ Now, how did
he know it was wounded, since Slim had not mentioned this when he had
telephoned? It followed that if he had not seen the broncho--and that he
had seen it was a sheer physical impossibility--he could know of the
wound only because he was already in close touch with what had happened
at Noches.

But how could he be aware of what was happening fifty miles away? That
was the sticker Jim could not get around. His alibi was just as good as
that of the horse. Both of them rested on the assumption that neither
could cover the ground between two given points in a given time. There
was one other possible explanation--that Healy had been in telephonic
communication with Noches before he met Phyllis. But this seemed to Jim
very unlikely, indeed. By his own story he had been cutting trail all
afternoon and had seen nobody until he met Phyllis.

Yeager called on the cashier, Benson, later in the day, and had a talk
with him and with the president, Johnson. Both of these were now back at
their posts, though the latter was not attempting much work as yet. Jim
talked also with many others. Some of them had theories, but none of
them had any new facts to advance.

The young cattleman put up at the same hotel as Spiker and struck up a
sort of intimacy with him. They sometimes loafed together during the
day, and at night they were always to be seen side by side at the poker
table.

CHAPTER XXI

BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI

Keller found convalescence under the superintendence of Miss Sanderson
one of the great pleasures of his life. Her school was out for the
summer and she was now at home all day. He had never before found time
to be lazy, and what dreaming he had done had been in the stress of
action. Now he might lie the livelong day and not too obviously watch
her brave, frank youth as she moved before him or sat reading. For the
first time in his life he was in love!

But as the nester grew better he perceived that she was withdrawing
herself from him. He puzzled over the reason, not knowing that her
brother, Phil, was troubling her with flings and accusations thrown out
bitterly because his boyish concern for her good name could find no
gentler way to express itself.

"They're saying you're in love with the fellow--and him headed straight
for the pen," he charged.

"Who says it, Phil