HE HAPPENINGS DOWN HANCE'S TRAIL

Miss Cullen was sitting on a rock apart from her brother and
Hance, as I had asked her to do when I helped her dismount. I
went over to where she sat, and said, boldly,--

"Miss Cullen, I want those letters."

"What letters?" she asked, looking me in the eyes with the most
innocent of expressions. She made a mistake to do that, for I
knew her innocence must be feigned, and so didn't put much faith
in her face for the rest of the interview.

"And what is more," I continued, with a firmness of manner about
as genuine as her innocence, "unless you will produce them at
once, I shall have to search you."

"Mr. Gordon!" she exclaimed, but she put such surprise and grief
and disbelief into the four syllables that I wanted the earth to
swallow me then and there.

"Why, Miss Cullen," I cried, "look at my position. I'm being paid
to do certain things, and--"

"But that needn't prevent your being a gentleman," she
interrupted.

That made me almost desperate. "Miss Cullen," I groaned,
hurriedly, "I'd rather be burned alive than do what I've got to,
but if you won't give me those letters, search you I must."

"But how can I give you what I haven't?" she cried, indignantly,
assuming again her innocent expression.

"Will you give me your word of honor that those letters are not
concealed in your clothes?"

"I will," she answered.

I was very much taken aback, for it would have been so easy for
Miss Cullen to have said so before that I had become convinced
she must have them.

"And do you give me your word?"

"I do," she affirmed, but she didn't look me in the face as she
said it.

I ought to have been satisfied, but I wasn't, for, in spite of
her denial, something forced me still to believe she had them,
and looking back now, I think it was her manner. I stood
reflecting for a minute, and then requested, "Please stay where
you are for a moment." Leaving her, I went over to Fred.

"Mr. Cullen," I said, "Miss Cullen, rather than be searched, has
acknowledged that she has the letters, and says that if we men
will go into the hut she'll get them for me."

He rose at once. "I told my father not to drag her in," he
muttered, sadly. "I don't care about myself, Mr. Gordon, but
can't you keep her out of it? She's as innocent of any real wrong
as the day she was born."

"I'll do everything in my power," I promised. Then he and Hance
went into the cabin, and I walked back to the culp