and the beautiful, trim figure of youth.

Yet he was a spy. Beulah hardened her heart.

"I found your hat in the dust, Mr. Street." She held it out to him
upside down, the leather pad lifted by her finger so that the letters
stood out.

The rigor of her eyes was a challenge. For a moment, before he caught
sight of the initials, he was puzzled at her stiffness. Then his heart
lost a beat and hammered wildly. His brain was in a fog and he could
find no words of explanation.

"It is your hat, isn't it, Mr.--Street?"

"Yes." He took it from her, put it on, and gulped "Thanks."

She waited to give him a chance to justify himself, but he could find
no answer to the charge that she had fixed upon him. Scornfully she
turned from him and went to the house.

Miss Rutherford found her father reading a week-old newspaper.

"I've got fresher news than that for you, dad," she said. "I can tell
you who this man that calls himself Cherokee Street isn't."

Rutherford looked up quickly. "You mean who he is, Boots."

"No, I mean who he isn't. His name isn't Cherokee Street at all."

"How do you know?"

"Because he is wearing a hat with the initials 'R.B.' stamped in it. I
gave him a chance to explain and he only stammered and got white. He
hadn't time to think up a lie that would fit."

"Dad burn it, Jess Tighe is right, then. The man is a spy." The
ranchman lit a cigar and narrowed his eyes in thought.

"What is he spying here for?"

"I reckon he's a detective of the express company nosing around about
that robbery. Some folks think it was pulled off by a bunch up in the
hills somewhere."

"By the Rutherford gang?" she quoted.

He looked at her uneasily. The bitterness in her voice put him on the
defensive. "Sho, Boots! That's just a way folks have of talking.
We've got our enemies. Lots of people hate us because we won't let any
one run over us."

She stood straight and slender before him, her eyes fixed in his. "Do
they say we robbed the express company?"

"They don't say it out loud if they do--not where I can hear them," he
answered grimly.

"Did we?" she flung at him.

His smile was forced. The question disturbed him. That had always
been her way, even when she was a small child, to fling herself
headlong at difficulties. She had never been the kind to be put off
with anything less than the truth.

"I didn't. Did you?" he retorted.

"How about the boys--and Uncle Buck--and Brad