But Thomas Braddock was not thinking of his wife in connection with the disappointment that had come to him in that last hour of degradation. He was thinking of Colonel Bob Grand and wondering what magic influence he had exercised over the boy to compel him to deliver so much money into his hands. Down in the darkest corner of his soul he was cursing Bob Grand for a scheming thief, and David Jenison for a hopeless imbecile. Before the wagons were well under way for the next stand he was dead drunk in the alley back of the hotel bar, having first thrashed a porter who undertook to eject him from the place. Mrs. Braddock and Christine waited for him at the lot until the men began to pull down the dressing-tent. David was with them. Not far away was Joey Noakes, the center of a group of performers, held together by his wonderful tale concerning the sensational bit of pocketpicking that had occurred early in the evening. A congressman had been "touched" for his purse and three hundred dollars while waiting for a train at the depot. The town was wild over the theft. In the midst of the narrative, Artful Dick sauntered up to the group, coming, it seemed, from nowhere. The gossiper abruptly stopped his tale. "They say it's going to rain before morning," said Dick airily. "You guys will get rust on your joints if you stay out in it. Ta-ta! I'm looking for my brother. Seen him?" He strolled on, as if he owned the earth. "That feller'll be as rich as the devil some day, if he keeps on," said one of the group. That was the mild form of opprobrium that followed Artful Dick into the shadows. As he passed by the Braddocks and David, he doffed his derby gallantly. To this knowing chap there was something significant in the dreary, half-hearted smile that the mother and daughter gave him. At any rate, he took a second look at them out of the corner of his eye. "Brad's up to something," he thought. The smile he bestowed upon Ruby Noakes, who stood near by with several of the women, was all-enveloping. Ruby's dark eyes looked after him until his long, jaunty figure disappeared in the darkness. "Too bad he's a thie--what he is," ventured the Iron-jawed Woman pityingly. She addressed the reflection to Ruby, who started and then positively glared at the speaker. David escorted Mrs. Braddock and Christine to the hotel, where he also was to "put up" under the new dispensation. They had but little to say to each other. A deep sense of restraint had fallen upon them. He understood and appreciated their lack of interest in anything but their own unexpressed thoughts. As for himself, he was sick at heart over the discovery he had made. Not for all the world would he have added to their unhappiness by voicing the thoughts that were uppermost in his mind, rioting there with an insistent clamor that almost deafened him. Christine's father was a thief!