“Oh, that! We may have been quarreling, but--but I know him to be an honest man.” “How long’ve you known him?” “Why, we met on the road about a week ago.” She saw a question in the storekeeper’s face and flushed again. “It doesn’t take a woman forever to judge, you know. If Bill chooses to run off, I’m sure I have no reason to worry about his affairs.” She spoke it primly, unaware that her eyes told another story. “But I’m quite sure he’d not be a sneak thief.” The girl changed the subject abruptly and asked a question about homesteading. Budd turned to one of his never-failing stories and kept drawling away until he saw Sam duck into the clearing and make for the store. He sighed, fingered the deputy’s star on his vest and turned toward the cigar box which served as his cash till. “Storekeepin’ used to be a nice quiet trade until this boom hit me. Now I got to be a regular bookkeeper.” He was shuffling a pile of paper bills on the counter when Sam came in. “Yore prisoner,” said he in the same lazy voice, “is a slick one. Got plumb clean.” “Twen’y-five, thirty, forty-five,” counted Budd, thumbing the bills. “You been chasing him, too?” “Thought I had a scent, but it petered out.” Sam’s eyes followed Budd’s pile of money. “He’s ducked. What I can’t see is why he didn’t make a stab to get his duffle and horse.” “Eighty-nine dollars and fifty-three cents,” tabulated Budd, rumbling to himself. He made a few weird scratches with a stub pencil and thrust the money carelessly back in the cigar box. Sam watched the operation with his poker face, blandly uninterested. “Well,” continued Budd, “he’ll be caught sooner or later. They always do. Never saw a crook git far yet.” “That’s right,” assented Sam. He turned to the girl. “Care to amble around and scare up an appetite?” “Yes,” said she. Her eyes were likewise fixed on the cigar box. A swift look went to Budd. He was slivering off another piece of cheese, intent on the process. So the two walked out and circled around the wagons. The storekeeper put the cigar box on the counter, ransacked the shelves for writing paper and sat down to compose a rather long letter. He was not a rapid penman, and before he had finished night once more was upon the clearing with the fires sending their veering tongues of flame to the black sky. He went back to the kitchen, got something to eat, and sat down for a long, dark study over the tip of his cigar. Alternately he chuckled and frowned. “That girl,” said he, “is shore a case. Been playin’ Sam agin’ Bill to even up a quarrel, and now she’s turrible sorry. Jest like what a woman’d do.” He looked down at the star and was acutely displeased. “This thing shore sets on my mind. Ef I was jest an ordinary citizen it wouldn’t be sech a risky experiment; bein’ an officer makes my conscience troubled, and that’s a fact.”