ee of investigation would like to know?" concluded Leroy, as his
cold eyes raked them scornfully and came to rest on Reilly.

"Not for mine," said Neil, with an apologetic laugh. "I'm satisfied. I
just wanted to know. And I guess Cork corroborates."

Reilly growled something under his breath, and turned to hulk away.

"One moment. You'll listen to me, now. You have taken the liberty to
assume I was going to sell you out. I'll not stand that from any man
alive. To-morrow night I'll get back from Tucson. We'll dig up the loot
and divide it. And right then we quit company. You go your way and I
go mine." And with that as a parting shot, Leroy turned on his heel and
went direct to his horse.

Alice Mackenzie might have searched the West with a fine-tooth comb and
not found elsewhere two such riders for an escort as fenced her that
day. Physically they were a pair of superb animals, each perfect after
his fashion. If the fair-haired giant, with his lean, broad shoulders
and rippling flow of muscles, bulked more strikingly in a display of
sheer strength, the sinewy, tigerish grace of the dark Apollo left
nothing to be desired to the eye. Both of them had been brought up in
the saddle, and each was fit to the minute for any emergency likely to
appear.

But on this pleasant morning no test of their power seemed likely to
arise, and she could study them at her ease without hindrance. She had
never seen Leroy look more the vagabond enthroned. For dress, he wore
the common equipment of Cattleland--jingling spurs, fringed chaps,
leather cuffs, gray shirt, with kerchief knotted loosely at the neck,
and revolver ready to his hand. But he carried them with an air, an
inimitable grace, that marked him for a prince among his fellows.
Something of the kind she hinted to him in jesting paradoxical fashion,
making an attempt to win from his sardonic gloom one of his quick,
flashing smiles.

He countered by telling her what he had heard York say to Reilly of her.
"She's a princess, Cork," York had said. "Makes my Epitaph gyurl look
like a chromo beside her. Somehow, when she looks at a fellow, he feels
like a whitewashed nigger."

All of them laughed at that, but both Leroy and the sheriff tried to
banter her by insisting that they knew exactly what York meant.

"You can be very splendid when you want to give a man that whitewashed
feeling; he isn't right sure whether he's on the map or not," reproached
the train-robber.

She lau