Charley Bedloe
was murdered last night."

"I know."

"The devil you do? All right. Then here's something else. His brother,
the Kid, they call him, swears that you killed him."

"I know," nodded Thornton as quietly as before.

Comstock made no pretence of hiding his surprise.

"I thought you had left before the shooting happened. I was all over
town; no one saw you...."

"Except the Kid. He did. He saw me outside the window through which
somebody shot Charley."

Comstock returned his attention to his biscuit and gravy.

"I'm a failure as a news monger," he grunted. "Go on. You tell _me_."

And Thornton told him. Before he had finished Comstock had pushed back
his chair and was letting his coffee go cold. For Thornton had told him
not alone of what had happened at the Here's How Saloon last night, but
of the work that Broderick and Pollard were doing, of all of his
certainties and his suspicions, of the "planted" evidence he had found
in the hay loft, of the missing saddle. Only he did not mention the name
of a girl, and he remembered that Pollard was her uncle and spared him
where he could.

"What a game! By high heaven, what a game!" Comstock pursed his lips
into a long whistle. Then he banged his first down upon the table, his
eyes grown wonderfully bright and keen, crying softly, "I've got him,
I've got him at last, and he's going to pay to the uttermost for all he
has done in the last seven years ... and before! Got him--by thunder!"

"Pollard?" asked the cowboy quickly.

"No. Not Pollard."

"Then Broderick?"

"Not Broderick."

"Bedloe?... The Kid?"

"What does his name matter? I'll give him a dozen names when the time
comes, and by heaven he's got a crime to pay for for every name he ever
wore!"

He grew suddenly silent and sat staring out through the open door at the
distant mountains. At last he turned back toward Thornton, his eyes very
clear, his expression placid.

"Guess why they are waiting five days more before springing their mine?"
he asked abruptly.

"Yes. I figured it out a little while ago, after I found the truck in my
loft. In five days it'll be the first of the month. On the first of the
month the stage from the Rock Creek Mines will be worth holding up. It
carried in ten thousand dollars last month. At times, there has been a
lot more. Just as sure as a hen lays eggs, it is due to be robbed on the
first; they'll find something here to prove I was the hold up man, and
I..