Jane, the while, had taken advantage of her absolution from oath to follow guardedly; with automatic ready now appeared from darkness into the light of the entrance. “If he so much as whines, shoot him—and shoot to kill this time!” Pape directed. “He deserves punishment and on two counts, I think. Just a minute. I want to make sure.” Stepping nearer the opening, he began to run through the letters and documents taken from the jurist’s coat. “Jane Lauderdale! Can it really be you, my child?” At last Allen drew upon his font of sebaceousness. “I hope that you, too, are not in the power of this impossible——” “She isn’t. I’m in hers.” Pape had overheard; now wheeled around. A glance had satisfied him that the cryptogram at last was in hand. The brown engravings, the familiar look of which had held his eyes when he lay trussed in the open, had confirmed his first suspicion of them. Folded with the crinkly parchment was other detailed proof. “You’re under arrest, judge!” he snapped. “How so? You’re no officer and I—You can’t——” “Oh yes, I can. Some few of the impossibilities that are my pet pastime ought to be accredited to the deputy sheriff of Snowshoe County, Montana. Out with those dimpled wrists!” With one length of the rope so recently misused on himself, Pape improvised handcuffs; with another hoppled the ankles of the jurist. Unnerved by his helplessness, the little great man began to whimper. “You tried to murder me out there. Now you—you—arrest me for what?” “Ask the man behind the Montana Gusher oil fraud—your dishonorable self. We’re going to give you opportunity—a little time alone with the crook.” The accusation left Pape’s lips with the assurance of a theorem. The legal tricks played in Western courts against his earlier fight to protect his good name long ago had convinced him that some legal mind was master of the plot. The jurist’s morning skill at court jugglery had brought its flash of suspicion. But not until he had discovered Allen as the Lauderdale enemy had there recurred to him Jane’s exclamation, clipped by her father, that some one they knew might be the promoter of the oil fraud. Later had come the first sight of tell-tale stock certificates in the small culprit’s pocket, their worth as clinching proof assured by his recent examination at the mouth of the cave. For the moment Allen seemed staggered by the charge. He looked as though he should find himself exceeding poor company. Pape turned to Jane. “Once more may I borrow your gun, dear? Some one of his plug-uglies seems to have appropriated mine own. Come.” “Don’t leave me, child. Don’t go with the wild-man,” Allen urged the girl. “He’ll only lead you into more trouble. He can’t escape my men once I start them searching for him and the price he’ll pay for trussing me up like this——”