ou last
night. I followed him, but lost him. Then I got into the clearin' in
the timber. I run into a man named Al Sharp, who'd been knifed by the
Toltec. Him an' the Toltec had been detailed by Taggart to get the
diagram. Sharp said Taggart knowed my dad had drawed one. Telza got
it last night while you was talkin' to Taggart. Frame-up. Sharp tried
to take it away from Telza, an' Telza knifed him. Sharp's dead. I
buried him last night. Telza dropped the diagram. I got it. I reckon
Telza has sloped. Then I met Taggart an' his dad. They reckoned they
didn't like my company overmuch an' they walked home. Didn't even wait
to take their horses."

She drew a breath which sounded strangely like relief.

"Well," she said; "it was fortunate that you happened to be there to
get the idol."

"Yes," he drawled, with a suspicious grin; "I reckon you feel a whole
lot like congratulatin' me."

"I do," she said. "Of course you were not to have the idol just yet,
but it is better for you to have it before the time than that the
Taggarts should get hold of it."

"Do you know where the idol is hid?" he asked.

She told him no, that she had never consulted the diagram.

"I reckon," he said, looking into her steady eyes, "that you're tellin'
the truth. In that case it will be safe where it is, for a while.
I'll be lookin' it up when I get hold of the money."

Her chin raised triumphantly. "You will not get that so easily," she
said. "But," she added, interestedly, "now that you know where the
idol is, why don't you get it and convert it into cash?"

He reddened and eyed her with a decidedly crestfallen air. "I ain't so
much stuck on monkeyin' with them religious things," he admitted.

Again a doubt arose in his mind concerning her relations with Neal
Taggart. The fact that she had not divulged the hiding place of the
idol to him was proof that if he had been trying to deceive her he had
not succeeded. This thought filled him with a sudden elation.

"Lately," he said, "it begins to look as though you was gettin' some
sense. You're gettin' reasonable. I reckon you'll be a bang-up girl,
give you time."

Her lips curled, but there was a flash of something in her eyes that he
could not analyze. But he was sure that it wasn't anger or
disapproval. Neither was it scorn. It seemed to him that it might
have been mockery, mingled with satisfaction. Certainly there was
mockery in her voice when she answered