The third day came and went and she saw no one but Pollard and Mrs. Riddell. Pollard was unusually silent, and again and again she saw that his eyes were hard, his mouth cruel. She began to forget that he was kin to her; she began to see only that here was a man playing his game with high, very high, stakes, that he was watchful and determined, that he was not the sort to let anything, no matter what, stand between him and the thing he had made up his mind to do. She saw that he was growing nervous and sensed that he was in that frame of mind when men act swiftly and unscrupulously. She took no step about the house that Pollard did not know of it. The fourth day came, and her own nerves were strained to snapping. If she could only do something! She must do something. But what? If Broderick were the guilty man, and from a score of little things, she knew that he was, then Henry Pollard was no less guilty. If Pollard were a part of the horrible scheme, how about Cole Dalton, the sheriff? She began to think that she saw why the months had gone by and Dalton had made no arrests! If he was one of them, if the man paid by the county to defend the county against outlawry were hand and glove with the outlaws, to whom then could she turn? But at last, upon the evening of the fourth day, when her spirit was ready for some desperate measure unless fate came to help her, fate did help and young Bud King called. He had spent the day in Hill's Corners upon the quest of any information which might tell him who the man was who had run off his father's cattle. Having learned nothing, and being a wise young man after his fashion, he had determined not to go home entirely profitless, and so came to see Pollard's niece. She saw him as he rode slowly down the street. In a flash she guessed that he came to see her, divined too that Pollard would give her little opportunity of talking to young King or any other man, alone. She was at her window where she sat so often. Before Bud King's horse had been tied at the gate she had written a hasty note, had thrust it into an envelope, and had scrawled on the outside: "Please carry this right away to Buck Thornton. Don't let any one see. It is very important." Then she ran down stairs, slipping the note into the bosom of her dress, hastening to be at the door when the Bar X man knocked lest Henry Pollard turn him away, saying that she was not at home. As she opened the door, and Bud entered, hat in hand and flushed of face, Pollard came to the door of his office. Winifred, shaking hands warmly, asked King in, and remarking that her uncle was only reading, invited him into the office. Pollard, she knew, had no reason to suspect what she had in mind, and she would give him no reason. Before Bud left she would find a way to give him the note.