"It isn't anything serious, is it?"

"No, no." His answer was as hasty as her question had been. "Just
rheumatism, Winifred. I'm subject to it here of late."

Then she saw that he had sat stiffly, that his shoulder, the left
shoulder, was carried awkwardly and was evidently bandaged.

"I'm sorry," she said again. And then, determined to tell him before he
should ask, "Uncle, I...." Oh, it was so hard to say with him looking at
her with those keen, bright eyes of his! "You should have got some one
else to help you. I have failed.... I have lost your money for you!"

She dropped her face into her hands, trembling, striving to keep her
tears back, feeling now, as she had not felt before, as if she had been
altogether to blame for all that had happened, as though it had been her
carelessness that had cost her uncle his five thousand dollars. And when
at last he did not speak and she looked up again, she saw that his eyes
had not changed, that there was no surprise in them, that if he felt
anything whatever he hid it.

"Don't cry about it, my dear," he said gently. He even smiled a little.
"Tell me about it. You were robbed of it? Before you had more than got
out of light of Dry Town?"

"How do you know?" she cried.

"I don't know, my dear. But I do know that the stage came on through,
with no attempt at a hold-up, and I guessed that our little ruse didn't
fool anybody. When I got the empty strong box from the bank I knew
pretty well what to look for."

"But," she told him, flushed with her hope, "we'll get it back! For I
know who robbed me, I can swear to him!"

Pollard's hand, lying upon the bed spread, had shut tight. She noticed
that and no other sign of emotion.

"And _I_ know!" he said harshly. "Yes, I'll get it back! Now, tell me
how it happened."

"It was a man named Buck Thornton...."

She saw the quick change of light in his eyes and in the instant knew
that if Buck Thornton hated Henry Pollard he was hated no less in
return. Further, she saw that back of the hatred there was a sort of
silent laughter as though the thing she had said had pleased this man as
no other thing could have pleased him, that in some way which she could
not understand, this information had moved him as he had not been moved
by news of his heavy loss. And she wondered.

"You are ready to swear to that?" he asked sharply, his eyes searching
and steady and eager upon hers. "You will swear that it was Thornton who
robbed you?"