“I was on the Reservation one day. Thunder Bird was getting married again. He was all decked out. Around his neck he had a chain of beads, and hanging on the middle of it was a piece of a white man’s silver watch chain. It was Mexican made, I guess—I’d only seen the like of it once before; Gallup had such a chain, and it always looked to me as if it had been broken off. “I asked the chief where he got those links. He was on edge in a second. I mentioned Gallup’s name. That floored him. I found out afterward that he had not been in town for years, that he had no idea of Gallup’s nearness. I made a good friend of the Indian. It took me a year or more to piece together the story of Gallup’s past; but I got it. That was three years ago. “I managed it so that Thunder Bird got a look at Kent and Gallup. He recognized them at a glance. “I got busy hunting for Traynor. Took me until a month ago to find him. When he came I was on the Reservation. I talked to him, and part of what I’m going to tell you I got from him, the rest from the chief. Now, for God’s sake don’t let me pass out until I’ve finished.” Gale paused for a second or so. “Got to make it short,” he began again. “It was down in Arizona. Traynor, Kent, and Gallup had a copper claim in the Painted Desert. Traynor was married. Had a wife and baby girl living in Flagstaff. All this happened nineteen or twenty years ago. “Thunder Bird had skipped from the Reservation—some trouble growing out of the Mormon raid—he was hiding out down around the Little Colorado. Traynor hired him to freight supplies to their mine. “The claim began to look so good that Gallup and Kent decided to get rid of Traynor. They sent the Indian to town, and as soon as they were alone the two of them jumped their man, hog-tied him and rolled him out in the sun to die of thirst. Two days nearly finished him. “Kent, then, loaded him on a mule and took him out north and left him for the buzzards. They were in the clear—men dying right along like that for want of water. They put up a fine show when the Indian returned. Told him Traynor had been gone two days; that they had hunted for him until their water gave out. “It was a pat yarn, but the Indian noticed that broken watch chain and found the piece Traynor had twisted off in the fight. That night he stole what water there was in camp and went after the missing man. He searched for days without finding him. A wandering band of Shewits had picked up Traynor and carried him off to their village north of the Virgin. Two months later Thunder Bird found him there. “Traynor went back to Flagstaff, but Kent and Gallup were gone, also his wife and child. Six or seven years elapsed before they showed up in this country. Traynor’s wife had died. Kent claimed the girl for his daughter.” “You mean Molly?” Johnny gasped. “She ain’t Kent’s daughter?”