"There's a queer story about Olney. You know he has left the country, don't you? It seems he rode very hurriedly up to the depot at Wilmer to take the train. Just as he stepped on, a fellow who knew him by sight noticed a piece of paper pinned on the back of his coat. He jerked it loose. It was a--m-m--very peculiar document for a man to be wearing on his back." Seabeck pulled at his whiskers, but it was not the pulling which quirked the corners of his lips. "The man said Olney seemed greatly upset over something and had evidently forgotten the paper until he felt it being pulled loose. He said Olney looked back then, and he was the color of a pork-rind. The train was pulling out. The man took the paper over to a saloon and let several others read it. They--mm-mm--decided that it should be placed in the hands of the authorities. Have--m-m--your--friends ever mentioned the matter to you?" "No," said Billy Louise, and her eyes were wide. "Hm-mm! We must discover, if we can, Miss MacDonald, whether they are in any way implicated with this man Olney. I believe that this is at present more important than the recovery of any--m-m--cattle of mine which they may have appropriated." Billy Louise looked at him for a minute. "Mr. Seabeck, you're awfully dear about this!" she told him. "I haven't been as square as you; and I've been-- Listen here, Mr. Seabeck! I don't love Charlie Fox a bit. I love somebody else, and I'm going to marry him. He's so square, I'd hate to have him think I even let you believe something that wasn't true. It's Marthy I'm thinking of, Mr. Seabeck. I was afraid you wouldn't let Charlie off just for her sake, but I thought maybe if you just thought I--wanted you to do it for mine, why, maybe--with two women to be sorry for, you'd kind of--" "Hm-mm!" Seabeck sent her a keen, blue, twinkling glance that made Billy Louise turn hot all over with shame and penitence. "Hm-mm!" he said again--if one can call that a saying--and pulled at his graying whiskers. "Hm-mmm!" CHAPTER XXVII MARTHY