'm in earnest," he promised as
he walked away.

"I wonder if he really meant anything," the girl was thinking in terror,
and he, "she knows something; now, I would like to know what."

Melissy attended to her duties in the postoffice after the arrival of the
stage, and looked after the dining-room as usual, but she was all the time
uneasily aware that Jack Flatray had quietly disappeared. Where had he
gone? And why? She found no answer to that question, but the ranger
dropped in on his bronco in time for supper, imperturbable and
self-contained as ever.

"Think I'll stay all night if you have a room for me," he told her after
he had eaten.

"We have a room," she said. "What more have you heard about the stage
robbery?"

"Nothing, Miss Lee."

"Oh, I thought maybe you had," she murmured tremulously, for his blue
eyes were unwaveringly upon her and she could not know how much or how
little he might mean.

Later she saw him sitting on the fence, holding genial converse with Jim
Budd. The waiter was flashing a double row of white teeth in deep laughter
at something the deputy had told him. Evidently they were already friends.
When she looked again, a few minutes later, she knew Jack had reached the
point where he was pumping Jim and the latter was disseminating
misinformation. That the negro was stanch enough, she knew, but she was on
the anxious seat lest his sharp-witted inquisitor get what he wanted in
spite of him. After he had finished with Budd the ranger drifted around to
the kitchen in time to intercept Hop Ling casually as he came out after
finishing his evening's work. The girl was satisfied Flatray could not
have any suspicion of the truth. Nevertheless, she wished he would let the
help alone. He might accidentally stumble on something that would set him
on the right track.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BOONE-BELLAMY FEUD IS RENEWED

"Here's six bits on the counter under a seed catalogue. Did you leave it
here, daddy?"

Champ Lee, seated on the porch just outside the store door, took the pipe
from his mouth and answered:

"Why no, honey, I don't reckon I did, not to my ricollection."

"That's queer. I know I didn't----"

Melissy broke her sentence sharply. There had come into her eyes a spark
of excitement, simultaneous with the brain-flash which told her who had
left the money. No doubt the quarter and the half dollar had been lying
there ever since the day last week when Morse had eaten at the Ba