“You'll have to excuse him. It was beginning to get dark. His intentions were good.” There was a quick light step behind him, and Arlie came into the room. She glanced quickly from one to the other, and there was apprehension in her look. “I've come to see Lieutenant Fraser on business,” Briscoe explained, with an air patently triumphant. Arlie made no offer to leave the room. “He's hardly up to business yet, is he?” she asked, as carelessly as she could. “Then we'll give it another name. I'm making a neighborly call to ask how he is, and to return some things he lost.” Jed's hand went into his pocket and drew forth leisurely a photograph. This he handed to Arlie right side up, smiling the while, with a kind of masked deviltry. “Found it in Alec Howard's cabin. Seems your coat was hanging over the back of a chair, lieutenant, and this and a paper fell out. One of the boys must have kicked it to one side, and it was overlooked. Later, I ran across it. So I'm bringing it back to you.” In spite of herself Arlie's eyes fell to the photograph. It was a snapshot of the ranger and a very attractive young woman. They were smiling into each other's eyes with a manner of perfect and friendly understanding. To see it gave Arlie a pang. Flushing at her mistake, she turned the card over and handed it to the owner. “Sorry. I looked without thinking,” she said in a low voice. Fraser nodded his acceptance of her apology, but his words and his eyes were for his enemy. “You mentioned something else you had found, seems to me.” Behind drooping eyelids Jed was malevolently feline. “Seems to me I did.” From his pocket came slowly a folded paper. He opened and looked it over at leisure before his mocking eyes lifted again to the wounded man. “This belongs to you, too, but I know you'll excuse me if I keep it to show to the boys before returning it.” “So you've read it,” Arlie broke in scornfully. He grinned at her, and nodded. “Yes, I've read it, my dear. I had to read it, to find out whose it was. Taken by and large, it's a right interesting document, too.” He smiled at the ranger maliciously, yet with a certain catlike pleasure in tormenting his victim. Arlie began to feel a tightening of her throat, a sinking of the heart. But Fraser looked at the man with a quiet, scornful steadfastness. He knew what was coming, and had decided upon his course. “Seems to be a kind of map, lieutenant. Here's Gimlet Butte and the Half Way House and Sweetwater Dam and the blasted pine. Looks like it might be a map from the Butte to this part of the country. Eh, Mr. Fraser from Texas?” “And if it is?” “Then I should have to ask you how you come by it, seeing as the map is drawn on Sheriff Brandt's official stationery,” Jed rasped swiftly. “I got it from Sheriff Brandt, Mr. Briscoe, since you want to know. You're not entitled to the information, but I'll make you a gift of it. He gave it to me to guide me here.”