Delkin was nervously trying to fit a key into the lock of the side door, and he did not seem to hear. They pushed in together, Bud thoughtfully closing the door behind them with the idea of staving off the excitement that would follow hard on the heels of the town's enlightenment. Delkin lunged through the partition door, rushed to the open vault, gave one look and turned to the grewsome figure lying asprawl on the floor. He looked at the shelf behind the cashier's window, at the pulled-out, empty drawer beneath and slumped into a chair, his whole form seeming to have shrunk and aged perceptibly. "Charlie dead," he wailed, "and the bank cleaned out--ruined! My God, what can I do?" "Do?" Bud's eyes snapped. "Get after the gang that did it! You can get the money back if you pull yourself together. They can't eat it, and--the way Charlie looks, I'd say this happened not more than half an hour ago." He turned to Brunelle, the cameo brooch looking oddly out of place above his hard eyes and grim mouth. "You raise the town, Lightfoot, and I'll fork my horse and get after that pack outfit we saw leaving here as we came around the corner." "You think he did this?" Brunelle looked startled. "One man couldn't, could he?" "One man could have seen the gang leave here," Bud retorted impatiently. "Delkin, you stay here. Lightfoot will send some one." He whirled and was gone, running lightly down to where his horse was tied in front of the Elkhorn saloon, from which still rolled the uproar of boisterous celebration of nothing. CHAPTER FIVE THE SIGN OF THE GOLDEN ARROW Still, clear moonlight lay upon the land, with the far hills like a painted back drop against the stars when Bud, having ridden far and fast, jogged wearily into town and dropped reins before the bank, where a light shone faintly through the curtained windows and figures were to be seen moving occasionally behind the green shades. He knocked, and after a hushed minute Delkin himself admitted him. Bud walked from force of habit to the grilled window and leaned his fore-arms heavily upon the shelf, his cameo-pinned hat pushed back on his head as he pressed his forehead against the bronze rods of the barrier. "Well, I rode the high lines," he announced huskily because of the dryness in his throat. "I saw the bunch from town go fogging along the trail across the river, but I was back on the bench, following a mess of horse tracks that took off toward the hills.