"How blind I was--how lacking in faith! And all the time I knew in my heart you couldn't have done it," she reproached herself. His masterful eyes fastened on her. "Did your friends know it? Did Miss Joyce think I couldn't have done it?" "You'll have to ask her what she thought. I didn't hear Joyce give an opinion." "Is she going to marry that fellow Verinder?" "I don't know." "He'll ask her, won't he?" She smiled at his blunt question a little wanly. "You'll have to ask Mr. Verinder that. I'm not in his confidence." "You're quibbling. You know well enough." "I think he will." "Will she take him?" "It's hard to tell what Joyce will do. I'd rather not discuss the subject, please. Tell me, did you find your friends?" "We ran them down in the hills at last. I knew pretty well about where they would be and one morning I dropped in on them. We talked it all over and I put it up to them that if they would turn the loot over to me I'd try to call off the officers. Curly was sick and ashamed of the whole business and was willing to do whatever I thought best. Mosby had different notions, but I persuaded him to see the light. They told me where they had hidden the money in the river. I was on my way back to get it when I found little Bess Landor lost in the hills. Gill nabbed me as I took her to the ranch." "And after you were taken back to Gunnison--Did you break prison?" "I proved an alibi--one the sheriff couldn't get away from. We had gilt-edged proof we weren't near the scene of the robbery. The president of the bank had been talking to us about ten minutes when the treasurer of the association drove up at a gallop to say he had just been robbed." "So they freed you." "I made a proposition to the district attorney and the directors of the association--that if I got the money back all prosecutions would be dropped. They agreed. I came back for the money and found it gone." "If you had only told me that then." "I had no time. My first thought was to tell my cousin the truth, but I was afraid to take a chance on him. The only way to save Curly was to take back the money myself. I couldn't be sure that Captain Kilmeny would believe my story. So I played it safe and helped myself." "You must think a lot of your friend to go so far for him." "His mother turned him over to me to make a man of him, and if she hadn't I owed it to his father's son." Her eyes poured upon him their warm approving light. "Yes, you would have to help him, no matter what it cost." He protested against heroics with a face crinkled to humor. "It wasn't costing me a cent." "It might have cost you a great deal. Suppose that Captain Kilmeny had picked up his gun. You couldn't have shot him." "I'd have told him who I was and why I must have the money. No, Miss Dwight, I don't fit the specifications of a hero." Moya's lips curved to the sweet little derisive twist that was a smile in embryo. "I know about you, sir."