in lead pencil. In
astonishment, Lowell picked up another volume and found that the same
thing had been done. Then the door opened and he heard the cutting voice
say:

"Tell the interesting young agent that I am indisposed. I have never had
a social caller within my doors here, and I do not wish to start now."

Helen came out and closed the door.

"You heard?" she asked.

"Yes," replied Lowell. "It's all right. I'm only sorry if my coming has
caused you any additional pain or embarrassment. I won't ask you again
what keeps you in an atmosphere like this, but any time you want to
leave, command me on the instant."

"Please don't get our talk back where it was before," pleaded Helen, as
they stepped out on the porch and Lowell said good-bye. "I've enjoyed
the ride and the talk to-day because it all took me away from myself and
from this place of horrors. But I can't leave here permanently, no
matter how much I might desire it."

"It's all going to be just as you say," Lowell replied. "Some day I'll
see through it all, perhaps, but right now I'm not trying very hard,
because some way I feel that you don't want me to."

She shook hands with him gratefully, and Lowell drove slowly back to the
agency, not forgetting his customary stop at the scene of the murder--a
stop that proved fruitless as usual.

When he entered the agency office, Lowell was greeted with an excited
hail from Ed Rogers.

"Here's news!" exclaimed the chief clerk. "Tom Redmond has telephoned
over that Jim McFann has broken jail."

"How did he get away?"

"Jim had been hearing all this talk about lynching. It had been coming
to him, bit by bit, in the jail, probably passed on by the other
prisoners, and it got him all worked up. It seems that the jailer's kid,
a boy about sixteen years old, had been in the habit of bringing Jim's
meals. Also the kid had a habit of carrying Dad's keys around, just to
show off. Instead of grabbing his soup, Jim grabbed the kid by the
throat. Then he made the boy unlock the cell door and Jim slipped out,
gagged the kid, and walked out of the jail. He jumped on a cowboy's pony
in front of the jail, and was gone half an hour before the kid, who had
been locked in Jim's cell, managed to attract attention. Tom Redmond
wants you to get out the Indian police, because he's satisfied Jim has
skipped to the reservation and is hiding somewhere in the hills."

CHAPTER VIII

"That there girl down at the Greek Lett