"I heard all about the murder in Staunton. The sheriff was trying to head the kid off if he came through that county. We were expectin' to see him landed in jail any day. They had bloodhounds after him, I hear." Dick Cronk's body quivered in a sharp spasm of dread. "Say, Dick, listen here," said Braddock, leaning closer and dropping his voice to a half-whisper. "I've been wantin' you to turn up ever since he joined us. What will you say when I tell you he's got more 'n two thousand dollars with him?" Dick started. "What!" "He has. I've seen it. He's lousy with it." "Well, he came by it honestly," said Dick after a moment. "How do you know?" demanded the other insinuatingly. "Honest men are so blamed scarce, Brad, that I can always tell one when I see him." Braddock rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and back again before venturing the next remark. "It would be no trick at all to get it away from him." Dick Cronk looked at his averted face. "What do you mean?" "Think of what a haul it would be." "I suppose you want me to lift the pile. Is that it?" "Not unless we come to a thorough understanding beforehand," said Braddock quickly. "It's my plan, so I get the bulk of it, understand that." "I do the job and you get the stuff," sneered Dick, still looking at his companion. Braddock felt that look and moved uncomfortably. "It's too much money to let get away," he explained somewhat irrelevantly. "Then why don't you pinch it yourself? Why ask me to do it?" Braddock turned upon him angrily. "Why, I'm no thief! I'll break your neck if you make another crack like that." Artful Dick arose. "I'm not so easily insulted," he said with a queer little laugh. "But, say, Braddock, let me tell you one thing. I'm not going to touch that kid's wad, and you ain't either. I'm a friend of his'n, after what happened to-day. Put that in your pipe, Brad, and smoke it." Braddock gulped painfully. "See here, Dick, don't be a fool. We can clean up a--" "You'd take the pennies off a dead nigger's eyes," interrupted the pickpocket scathingly. "I'd do anything to keep the show from busting," said the other with the air of a martyr. "Anything to save my wife's little fortune, and anything to keep my performers from going broke." "I suppose your wife thinks it's all right to get this kid's money away from him," said Dick sarcastically. "She--why, of course, she wouldn't know anything about it. She's so blamed finicky." "Of course!" scoffed Dick. "But she'd stand for it, if she ever did find it out. She needs the money just as much as I do, only she likes to appear sanctimo--" "I hate a liar, Brad," said Dick coolly. Braddock arose unsteadily. "You mean ME?" "I do," said the thief to the liar. "You know you lie when you say she'd back you up in a game like that." "I've a notion to smash you one."