“Are you deaf?” demanded Rance; and then, emphasising every word, he rasped out: “The fellow you’ve been polkying with is the man that has been asking people to hold up their hands.” “Oh, go on--you can’t hand me out that!” Nevertheless the Girl looked wildly about the room. Angrily Rance strode over to her and sneered bitingly: “You don’t believe it yet, eh?” “No, I don’t believe it yet!” rapped out the Girl, laying great stress upon the last word. “I know he isn’t.” “Well, he _is_ Ramerrez, and he _did_ come to The Polka to rob it,” retorted the Sheriff. All at once the note of resentment in the Girl’s voice became positive; she flared back at him, though she flushed in spite of herself. “But he didn’t rob it!” “That’s what gits me,” fretted Sonora. “He didn’t.” “I should think it would git you,” snapped back the Girl, both in her look and voice rebuking him for his words. It was left to Ashby to spring another surprise. “We’ve got his horse,” he said pointedly. “An’ I never knowed one o’ these men to separate from his horse,” commented Sonora, still smarting under the Girl’s reprimand. “Right you are! And now that we’ve got his horse and this storm is on, we’ve got him,” said Rance, triumphantly. “But the last seen of Johnson,” he went on with a hasty movement towards the Girl and eyeing her critically, “he was heading this way. You seen anything of him?” The Girl struggled hard to appear composed. “Heading this way?” she inquired, reddening. “So Nick said,” declared Sonora, looking towards that individual for proof of his words. But Nick had caught the Girl’s lightning glance imposing silence upon him; in some embarrassment he stammered out: “That is, he was--Sid said he saw ’im take the trail, too.” “But the trail ends here,” pointed out Rance, at the same time looking hard at the Girl. “And if she hasn’t seen him, where was he going?” At this juncture Nick espied a cigar butt on the floor; unseen by the others, he hurriedly picked it up and threw it in the fire. “One o’ our dollar Havanas! Good Lord, he’s here!” he muttered to himself. “Rance is right. Where was he goin’?” was the question with which he was confronted by Sonora when about to return to the others. “Well, I tho’t I seen him,” evaded Nick with considerable uneasiness. “I couldn’t swear to it. You see it was dark, an’--Moses but the Sidney Duck’s a liar!” At length, Ashby decided that the man had in all probability been snowed under, ending confidently with: “Something scared him off and he lit out without his horse.” Which remark brought temporary relief to the Girl, for Nick, watching her, saw the colour return to her face. Unconsciously, during this discussion, the Girl had risen to her feet, but only to fall back in her chair again almost as suddenly, a sign of nervousness which did not escape the sharp eye of the Sheriff. “How do you know the man’s a road agent?” A shade almost of contempt was in the Girl’s question.