"For half a cent I'd borrow a horse and take the trail alone, with grub enough for a couple of days," Bud confided restlessly to his companion. "I'd do it, only Delkin says we'll be wanted at the inquest to-morrow; and after that the sheriff will be on the job and running things to suit himself. Seems mighty queer, the way those bandits plumb disappeared and never left a trace. Bat Johnson claimed to me that he was sure four riders went down the draw and crossed the river ahead of him, but now he admits that he only got a glimpse of the horses' rumps and can't swear to any riders. But what in thunder would range horses be doing right here in town almost? The whole thing's off color. I wish Lark was here--my uncle. He's pretty good at figuring out the other fellow's game." "There must be some way to catch the murderers and get the money back," Brunelle worried. "Of course catching them won't help the cashier, but the money makes a big difference. This really does leave Marge and me in an awful fix, Mr. Larkin. All you people have homes and property, but here we are--perfect strangers; and a little over five dollars to face the world with! We didn't think it would be safe to keep any money in the house, out in this wild country, so every dollar we had was in the bank--where it would be safe!" He laughed a bit wildly. "Of course, I'll go to work at once. We both will. I wonder how much the robbers got?" Bud shook his head. "Delkin doesn't know, exactly; or if he does he isn't telling until he has to. He says Charlie Mulholland took care of everything while the other fellow has been sick, and all he or any of the others did was go in and act as teller while Charlie wrote letters and worked on the books forenoons. It's just a little whiddledig of a bank--plenty of money, but not many depositors. All the cattlemen and some horse raisers used it, and put in great wads when they sold off some stock, and checked it out in driblets. I could have run the whole works myself, almost. If the bank's busted, the robbers got a plenty. It's going to hit a lot of us, but it sure is too bad you folks got caught. What kind of work did you think of doing?" "Well, Marge could teach school, of course. And once she gets a stand-in with the editors, she can sell all the pieces she writes, and I can sell the pictures to go with them. I can get a job as a cowboy for a while, I suppose, until we get on our feet again." His jaw squared. "We'll never go back, that's one thing sure; not even if we had the train fare. All the neighbors said we'd make a fizzle of things if we left there. I suppose there's a school somewhere that Marge can teach, isn't there?" "I don't know of--wel-l--come to think of it, the Meadowlark sure needs a school teacher." Bud had caught another disturbing sight of Marge sitting with bowed head by the table, lamplight shining through loose locks of hair. Tired as he was, bedtime came too soon for Bud that night.