"You'll find out soon enough," snarled Roland. "Mr. Lockwood's got something to say to you, I guess." And on the heels of this announcement Lockwood strode into the store, Josie clinging to his arm, Pete Willing--a trifle more sanely drunk than he had been some hours previous--bringing up the rear. "So!" snarled Blinky, halting and transfixing Nat with the stare of his cold blue eyes. "So we've found you, eh?" "Oh? I didn't know I was lost." "No nonsense, young man. I ain't in the humour for foolin'." Blinky was unquestionably in no sort of a humour at all beyond an evil one. "I come here to have a word with you." "Well, sir?" Nat's tone and attitude were perfectly pacific. "Ah, there ain't no use beatin' 'round the bush. You've behaved yourself ever since you come to Radville, and insinooated yourself into our confidence, 'spite of the fact that nobody in town knows who you were before you came. But now Roland's laid a charge again' you, and I want to know the rights to it." "Well," Roland interposed cockily, "I accused him of it to-night and he didn't deny it." [Illustration: "You're a thief with a reward out for you!"] "What's more," Lockwood continued with rising colour, "Roland says he can prove it?" "Prove what?" Nat insisted. "Get down to facts, can't you?" "That you're a thief with a reward out for you," said Roland. "You're that Mortimer Henry what absconded from the Longacre National Bank in Noo York." There fell a brief pause. Nat bowed his head and tugged at his moustache, his shoulders shaking with emotion variously construed by those who watched him. Presently he looked up again, his features gravely composed. "Roly," said he, "Balaam must miss you terribly." "That ain't no answer." Lockwood put himself solidly between Nat and the object of his obscure remark--who was painfully digesting it. "I want to know about this. You got my daughter to say she'd marry you this evenin', and you've got to explain to me about this bank business before it goes any further." "Yes?" commented Nat civilly. "Yes!" thundered Blinky. "Do you deny it? ... Answer me." To Kellogg's huge diversion, Nat struck an attitude, "I refuse to answer," said he. "Aha! What'd I tell you?" This was Roland's triumphant crow. "Nat!" Josie advanced, trembling with excitement. "Tell me, what does this mean?" Duncan perforce avoided her gaze. "Don't ask," he said sadly. "Is it true?" she insisted. "You heard what Roly said," he replied, with a chastened expression. "Then you admit it?" "I admit nothing." "Oh-h!" The girl drew away from him as from defilement. "I--I hate you!" she cried in a voice of loathing "That's all right," he told her serenely; "I've despised myself all evening." The girl showed him a scornful back. "Papa----" she began. "Don't thank me, Josie. Roland done it all: he got onto him." Lockwood continued to watch Duncan with the air of a cat eyeing a mouse.