ght, Archie--for such you shall be to the end of the chapter,
whether you lied about it or not. And now let's deal with practical
affairs. I'm going to spend the afternoon on that stolen machine we've
got back there; you'll hardly know it when you see it again. I'll
paint'er white to symbolize our purity. There's an assortment of clothes
the boys have left here from time to time--all sizes and ready for any
emergency. You can pick'em over while I'm working on the car. I've got a
bag of my own stuff stuck around here somewhere." He filled and lighted
a pipe, walked toward the kitchen end of the room and kicked a long box.
"If you'll just push that aside you'll find a door in the floor--quite a
cellar underneath--made it myself. Candles on the shelf there. Don't
break your neck on the ladder."

He gathered up several cans of ready-to-use paint, and paused in the
doorway to deliver a final admonition.

"If Hoky _should_ turn up--tall chap, a little bent in the shoulders,
clean, sharp profile--call him Hoky and yell Governor before he shoots.
He's very sudden with the gun, that Hoky; a lamentable weakness; spoiled
him for delicate jobs, but I'm afraid that at last somebody's got the
drop on him."

The cellar was really a cave gouged into the earth and piled with trunks
and hand bags stuffed with all manner of loot. There was enough
silverware to equip a dozen households, and Archie amused himself by
studying the monograms, thinking that quite possibly he was handling
spoons that he had encountered on happier occasions in the homes of his
friends. The trunks contained clothing in great variety and most of it
was new and of good quality. He carried up an armful and found a gray
suit that fitted him very well. Another visit yielded shirts, socks and
underclothing, a slightly used traveling case with shaving materials and
other toilet articles.

He bathed in the brook, shaved, dressed and felt like a new being. Only
a few hours had elapsed since he walked uprightly in the eyes of all
men; now he was a fugitive, and for all he knew to the contrary a
murderer. He had accommodated himself with ease to lying and the
practice of deceit; and even the taking of human life seemed no longer a
monstrous thing. If he were caught in the Governor's company he would
have a pretty time of it satisfying a court of his innocence; but he
considered his plight tranquilly.

In doffing the clothing he had acquired honestly and substituting sto