Jim looked first at one and then the other. He was a little short man, with squint eyes, and looked as if he had not shaved in a month. ‘I goes sometimes to see my folks that I trade with. I was at a rancho yesterday.’ ‘How late did you stay, Jim?’ ‘I am but just got home.’ ‘What time did you start to go away?’ ‘I didn’t look at the clock,’ replied Jim, in a surly manner. ‘Come as near as you can, Jim, and give us a true answer as you value the safety of your bacon,’ said Charley sternly. Jim looked up rather fiercely, but he saw that Charley was in earnest, and replied, ‘Well, I don’t know what time it was. It may be ’twas eleven o’clock and may be it was only ten.’ ‘And you have just returned?’ ‘I told you so once before.’ ‘So you did. When have you seen Irish Jamie, last?’ Jim looked keenly at his interrogators before he replied, ‘Well, I can’t rightly tell. Not in a fortnight, I should say p’raps, three weeks.’ ‘It’s all a cock and a bull story, that of Jamie,’ said Charley. ‘You see there’s no truth in it. He must be arrested.’ Jim Brown turned away his face and his manner was suspicious upon hearing these words. As Vandewater and Charley walked back to the store, the latter said. ‘We must see the keeper of the rancho and find out from him if Jim Brown has been there.’ ‘Why do you suspect this Brown of having been engaged in the robbery?’ ‘It is strange,’ said Charley, ‘that the Irishman, before he had time to think, should have addressed Brown as one that had agreed to call him at a certain hour. We must make sure that Brown was at the rancho; and if he was, a Philadelphia lawyer would be puzzled to account for Jamie’s exclamation when starting out of a sound sleep, and expecting to find Brown at his side.’ ‘True,’ said Vandewater. ‘Leave it to me,’ continued Charley. ‘I will find out what ranch Jim Brown visited yesterday. I will call there, and learn when he arrived, and when he left, if the fellow was there at all.’ On returning to the store, they found Jamie standing outside the door, and surrounded by Monteagle, Mr. Brown and several of the neighboring dealers. ‘So, sirrah,’ said Vandewater, ‘that Brown you spoke of, says that he hasn’t seen you for a fortnight, and he has just returned from visiting a friend out of the town.’ ‘Och, the lying villain,’ exclaimed Jamie, in a tone of virtuous indignation. ‘Och, the lying, thaving, murthering scoundrel, and wasn’t it his own silf that tould me to go into the store and take a nap till mornin’, and—’ He was interrupted by the appearance of Jim Brown himself, who rushed into the crowd, and confronting Jamie, cried ‘How’s this? What have you been telling about me?’