"Well, I'll tell you, Burchard, how that come. I found the greatest set of disguised cut-throats you ever saw, at this little hole back here. You hadn't better go there, if you don't want to be relieved of all the money you got last night. I saw them chalking their boots, and I chalked mine, just to see what would come of it. And here's what come of it;" and with that, Morton showed his bag of money. "Now," he said, "if I could find the right owner of this money, I'd give it to him; but I take it he's buried in some holler, without nary coffin or grave-stone. I 'low to pay you what I owe you, and take the rest out to Vincennes, or somewheres else, and use it for a nest-egg. 'Finders, keepers,' you know." Burchard looked at him darkly a moment. "Look here, Morton--Goodwin, I mean. You'll lose your head, if you fool with chalk that way. If you don't give that money up to the first man that asks for it, you are a dead man. They can't be fooled for long. They'll be after you. There's no way now but to hold on to it and give it up to the first man that asks; and if he don't shoot first, you'll be lucky. I'm going down this trail a way. I want to see old Brewer. He's got a good deal of political influence. Good-bye!" Morton rode forward uneasily until he came to a place two miles farther on, where another trail joined the one he was traveling. Here there stood a man with a huge beard, a blanket over his shoulders, holes cut through for arms, after the frontier fashion, a belt with pistols and knives, and a bearskin cap. The stranger stepped up to him, reaching out his hand and saying nothing. Morton was only too glad to give up the money. And he set Dolly off at her best pace, seeking to get as far as possible from the head-quarters of the cut-or-carry gang. He could not but wonder how Burchard should seem to know them so well. He did not much like the thought that Burchard's forbearance had bound him to support that gentleman's political aspirations when he had opportunity. This friendly relation with thieves was not what he would have liked to see in a favorite candidate, but a cursed fatality seemed to be dragging down all his high aspirations. It was like one of those old legends he had heard his mother recite, of men who had begun by little bargains with the devil, and had presently found themselves involved in evil entanglements on every hand. _CHAPTER XVI._ SHORT SHRIFT.