hall ease
your conscience by paying my traveling expenses. The emotional suspense
that I undergo shall be my reward. I'll take my commission in thrills."

This offer evoked a light laugh from Gray's guest. "You'd get enough of
'em," he asserted. "I'll advance a mild one, on account, at this
moment. Notice the couple dining at the third table to your left." Gray
lifted his eyes. "What do you see?"

"A rather well-dressed, hard-faced man and a decidedly attractive
woman--brunette. There's a suggestion of repressed widowhood about her.
It's the gown, probably. I am not yet in my dotage, and I had seen her
before I saw you."

"She's living here. I don't know much about her, but the man goes by
the name of Mallow."

"No thrill yet."

"He's been hanging about our store for the past month, making a few
purchases and getting acquainted with some of the clerks. Wherever I
go, lately, there he is. I'll wager if I took to-night's train for
Ranger, he'd be on it."

"And still my pulses do not leap."

"Wait! I got a sort of report on him and it's bad. I believe, and so
does the chief of police, that Mr. Mallow has something to do with the
gang of crooks that infests this country. One thing is certain, they're
not the native product, and our hold-ups aren't staged by rope-chokers
out of work."

Calvin Gray turned now and openly stared at the object of Coverly's
suspicions. There was an alert interest in his eyes. "You've cinched
the matter with me," he declared, after a moment. "Get out your
diamonds to-morrow; I'm going to take the night train to Ranger."

Later that evening, after his guest had gone, Gray took occasion
deliberately to put himself in Mallow's way and to get into
conversation with him. This was not a difficult maneuver, for it was
nearly midnight and the lobby was well-nigh deserted; moreover, it
almost appeared as if the restless Mr. Mallow was seeking an
acquaintance.

For the better part of an hour the two men smoked and talked, and had
Coverly overheard their conversation his blood would have chilled and
he would have prematurely aged, for his distinguished host, Calvin
Gray, the worldly-wise, suave man of affairs, actually permitted
himself to be pumped like a farmer's son. It would have been a ghastly
surprise to the jeweler to learn how careless and how confiding his
friend could be in an off moment; he would have swooned when Gray told
about his coming trip to Ranger and actually produced the mi