The week following Kenniston's drop-out was a busy one, with time-books to check and enter, commissary deductions to be made, and the payrolls to be gotten out. My office was a small room or space partitioned off from the commissary, the partition being of matched boards, breast-high, and above that a rough slat grille like those in country railroad stations. As I worked at the bracketed shelf which served as a high desk, I could see the interior of the commissary, and those who came and went. It may have been only a fancy, but it seemed to me that Dorgan came in oftener than usual; and more than once I caught him peering at me through the slatted grille, with the convict's trick of looking aside without turning his head. It was for this reason, more than for any other, that I recalled Kenniston's advice and armed myself when I went to Cripple Creek on the day before pay-day to get the money from the bank. The short journey to town was uneventful. A construction locomotive took me down to the main line junction, where I caught the regular train from Denver. But on the way from the railroad station to the bank in Cripple Creek I had a shock, followed instantly by the conviction that I was in for trouble. On the opposite side of the street, and keeping even pace with me, I saw Dorgan. Barrett (for obvious reasons I cannot use real names) was the man I had been told to ask for at the bank, and it was he who admitted me at the side door, the hour being well past the close of business. He was a clean-cut, alert young fellow; a Westerner, I judged, only by recent adoption. "You are Bertrand, from the Hadley and Shelton camps?" he asked; and then, as I produced my check and letter of authority; "You don't need the letter. Kenniston told me what you'd look like. Your money is ready." In one of the private rooms of the bank the currency was counted out, the count verified, the money receipted for, and I was ready to start back. Barrett walked to the railroad station with me, helping with the valise money bag, which was heavy with a good bit of coin for making change. We got better acquainted on the walk, and I warmed immediately to the frank, open-mannered young bank teller, little dreaming what this acquaintance, begun in pure business routine, was destined to lead to in the near future. Barrett saw me safely aboard of my return train, and stood on the platform at the open window of the car talking to me until the train started. On my part this leave-taking talk was more or less perfunctory; I was scanning the platform throng anxiously in search of a certain heavy-shouldered man with a sinister face; and when, just as the train began to move, I saw Dorgan swing himself up to the step of the car ahead, I knew what was before me--or thought I did--and surreptitiously drew the .45 from the inside coat-pocket where I had carried it, twirling the cylinder to make sure that it was loaded and in serviceable condition.