the bank at the Creek and get the money, you know,"
he said. "I usually go on the afternoon train. That will make you
late for banking hours, but if you wire ahead they'll have the money
counted out and ready for you. Then you can catch the evening train to
the junction and come up on one of the construction engines. Better
take one of the commissary .45's along, just for safety's sake--though
in all the trips I've made I've never needed a gun."

The week following Kenniston's drop-out was a busy one, with time-books
to check and enter, commissary deductions to be made, and the payrolls
to be gotten out. My office was a small room or space partitioned off
from the commissary, the partition being of matched boards,
breast-high, and above that a rough slat grille like those in country
railroad stations. As I worked at the bracketed shelf which served as
a high desk, I could see the interior of the commissary, and those who
came and went. It may have been only a fancy, but it seemed to me that
Dorgan came in oftener than usual; and more than once I caught him
peering at me through the slatted grille, with the convict's trick of
looking aside without turning his head. It was for this reason, more
than for any other, that I recalled Kenniston's advice and armed myself
when I went to Cripple Creek on the day before pay-day to get the money
from the bank.

The short journey to town was uneventful. A construction locomotive
took me down to the main line junction, where I caught the regular
train from Denver. But on the way from the railroad station to the
bank in Cripple Creek I had a shock, followed instantly by the
conviction that I was in for trouble. On the opposite side of the
street, and keeping even pace with me, I saw Dorgan.

Barrett (for obvious reasons I cannot use real names) was the man I had
been told to ask for at the bank, and it was he who admitted me at the
side door, the hour being well past the close of business. He was a
clean-cut, alert young fellow; a Westerner, I judged, only by recent
adoption.

"You are Bertrand, from the Hadley and Shelton camps?" he asked; and
then, as I produced my check and letter of authority; "You don't need
the letter. Kenniston told me what you'd look like. Your money is
ready."

In one of the private rooms of the bank the currency was counted out,
the count verified, the money receipted for, and I was ready to start
back. Barrett walked to the railroad sta