Hatred and suspicion were mingled in Talpers's look. The trader had spent most of his hours, since his return from Morgan's ranch, cursing the folly that had led him into wearing Sargent's watch. And now came this young Indian agent, with talk about thousand-dollar bills. There was another mistake Bill had made. He should have taken those bills far away and had them exchanged for money of smaller denomination. But he had been hard-pressed for cash, and suspicion seemed to point in such convincing fashion toward Fire Bear and the other Indians that it did not seem possible that it could be shifted elsewhere. Yet all his confidence had been shaken when Helen Ervin had calmly and correctly recounted to him the exact things that he had taken from that body on the hill. Probably she had been talking to the agent and had told him all she knew. "I know what you're drivin' at," snarled Bill, his rage getting the better of his judgment. "You've been talkin' to that girl at Morgan's ranch, and she's been tellin' you all she thinks she knows. But she'd better go slow with all her talk about valuables and thousand-dollar bills. She forgets that she's as deep in this thing as anybody and I've got the document to prove it." The surprise in the Indian agent's face was too genuine to be mistaken. Talpers realized that he had been betrayed into overshooting his mark. The agent had been engaged in a little game of bluff, and Talpers had fallen into his trap. "All this is mighty interesting to me, Bill," said Lowell, regaining his composure. "I just dropped in here, hoping for a little general cooperation on your part, and here I find that you know a lot more than anybody imagined." "You ain't got anything on me," growled Bill, "and if you go spillin' any remarks around here, it's your death-warrant sure." Lowell did not take his elbow from the counter. His leaning position brought out the breadth of his shoulders and emphasized the athletic lines of his figure. He did not seem ruffled at Bill's open threat. He regarded Talpers with a steady look which increased Bill's rage and fear. "The trouble with you is that you're so dead set on protectin' them Injuns of yours," said the trader, "that you're around tryin' to throw suspicion on innocent white folks. The hull county knows that Fire Bear done that murder, and if you hadn't got him on to the reservation the jail'd been busted into and he'd been lynched as he ought to have been." Bill waited for an answer, but none came. The young agent's steady, thoughtful scrutiny was not broken.