“Pretty wet after the storm, so I didn’t go to sleep. I’d jumped to the other side of the tracks and was hidden from Steve’s car while the freight train rolled on. They didn’t stop to hold a post-mortem over the handcar. Probably figured a tramp had been bumming a free ride on it and had got his, and good enough for him. “When the train had passed I was waiting by the road for Steve’s car. I guess he was pretty badly surprised when I hopped upon the running board and grabbed the steering wheel and swerved the car into a ditch, nearly turning it over. I don’t remember much of what happened then, what with Nita screeching and Steve swearing and popping his gun at me. But somehow I managed to get his revolver—didn’t know I’d been shot at first—and dragged him out of the car. “It must have been a pretty good fight, for Nita decided to beat it before it was finished. She started off with one of the suitcases but it was too heavy and she dropped it in the road and lit out. If Nita could dance as well as she can run,” David interrupted himself to grin at Bybee, “she’d be a real loss to the outfit.” “Well, Dave, even if Steve did get away with the money, my hat’s off to you, boy,” and he reached for the hand which Sally was still cuddling jealously. “Who’s telling this?” David demanded, with just a touch of boyish bravado, which made Sally love him better than ever. “He didn’t get away. I’m afraid he won’t be good for much for a long time. Nita should have stayed to look.” “The money, Dave!” Mrs. Bybee screamed. “You didn’t save the money, did you, Dave? Where are you, Winfield Bybee? I’m giving you fair warning! If he saved that money, I’m going to faint dead away!” “Then I reckon I’d better not tell you that I did save the money,” David grinned at her. “I surely hate to see you faint, ma’am. It isn’t so pleasant.” “Dave, you answer me this minute!” the old lady commanded, shaking a skinny finger in his face. “Do you know the outfit’ll be stranded if those two crooks did get away with the money? Every cent we had in the world was in that safe! You oughta be ashamed of yourself, teasing an old woman!” “I did save the money, if that’s what they had in the suitcases, Mrs. Bybee,” David answered more seriously. “Then where is it? What have you done with it? Left it lying in the road?” the showman’s wife screeched, her eyes wild in her gray, wrinkled face. “Now, now, Mother,” Bybee soothed her. “If he did, he shan’t be blamed. How could you expect him to walk six or seven miles with two heavy suitcases and his shoulder shot through?” Sally lifted her face from David’s caressing hand and glared at Mrs. Bybee. “Of course he didn’t leave it lying in the road! After risking his life to save it for you? David is the cleverest and bravest man in the world! Don’t you know that yet?”