question of ethics or religion was too much for his scattered wits.
He dug the toe of his boot in the gravel of the church path and
removed his cap to aid the labor of his thinking. "Maybe--" he agreed
at last. "An' will I be waitin' for you--or keepin' on?"

"Ye'll wait, of course," commanded Patsy.

She had barely disappeared through the little white door, and the
tinker thrown himself down with his back to the sign-post which
marked the roads, when a sorrel mare and a runabout came racing down
the road over which they had just come. There were two men in the
runabout, both of them tense and alert, their heads craned far in
advance of the rest of them, their eyes scanning the diverging roads.

"I cal'ate she's gone that way." The driver swung the whip,
indicating the road that ran south.

"Wall--I cal'ate so, too," agreed the other. "But then again--she
mightn't."

They reined in and discovered the tinker. "Some one passed this way
sence you been settin' there?" they inquired almost in unison.

"I don't know"--the tinker's fingers passed hurriedly across his eyes
and forehead, by way of seeking misplaced wits--"some one might be
almost any one," he smiled, cheerfully.

"Look here, young feller, if you're tryin' to be smart--" the driver
began, angrily; but his companion silenced him with a nudge and a
finger tapped significantly on the crown of his hat. He moderated his
tone:

"We're after a girl in a brown suit and hat--undersized girl. She was
asking the way to Arden. Seen any one of that description?"

"What do you want with her?"

"Never mind," growled the first man.

But the second volunteered meager information, "She's a suspect.
Stayed last night in the Inn and this morning a couple of thousand
dollars' worth of diamonds is missin'; that's what we want her for."

The tinker brightened perceptibly. "Guess she went by in a wagon half
an hour ago--that way. I think I saw her," and as the men turned
southward down the road marked Arden he called after them, "Better
hurry, if you want to catch her; the wagon was going at a right smart
pace."

He waited for their backs to be turned and for the crack of the whip
that lifted the heels of the sorrel above the dashboard before she
plunged, then, with amazing speed, of mind as well as of body, he
wrenched every sign from the post and pitched them out of sight
behind a neighboring stone wall.

The dust from departing wheels still filled the air when Pat