"Does that prove I was planning a hold-up? Isn't that the last thing I would have asked if I had intended robbery?" "Don't ask me. I ain't no psychologist. All I know is you took an interest in the bank-roll on the way." "I'm here for the Government investigating Macdonald. I was getting information--earning my pay. Can you understand that?" Gopher chewed his cud impassively. "Sure I can, and I been earning mine. By the way, howcome you to be beat up so bad, Mr. Elliot?" "I had a fight with the robbers." "Sure it wasn't with the robbed. That split lip of yours looks to me plumb like Mac's John Hancock." Elliot flushed angrily. "Of course if you intend to believe me guilty--" "Now, there ain't no manner o' use in gettin' het up, young fellow. Mebbe you did it; mebbe you didn't. Anyhow, you'll gimme that gat you been toting these last few days." Gordon's hand moved toward his hip. Then he remembered. "I haven't it. I left it--" "You left it at the ford--with one shell empty. That's where you left it," interrupted the officer. "Yes. I fired at Northrup as he rushed me." "Um-hu," assented Jones, impudent unbelief in his eye. "At Northrup or at Macdonald." "What do you think I did with the money, then? Did I eat it?" "Not so you could notice it. Since you put it to me flat-foot, you gave it to your pardners. You didn't want it. They did. They have got the horse too--and they're hitting the high spots to make their get-away." Elliot was locked up in the flimsy jail without breakfast. He was furious, but as he paced up and down the narrow beat beside the bed his anger gave way to anxiety. Surely the Pagets could not believe he had done such a thing. And Sheba--would she accept as true this weight of circumstantial evidence that was piling up against him? It could all be explained so easily. And yet--the facts fitted like links of a chain to condemn him. He went over them one by one. The babbling tongue of Selfridge that had made common gossip of the impending tragedy in which he and Macdonald were the principals--his purchase of the automatic--his public meeting with two known enemies of the Scotchman, during which he had been seen to give them money--his target practice with the new revolver--the unhappy chance that had taken him out to Seven-Mile Creek Camp the very day of the robbery--his casual questions of the miners--even the finding of the body by him. All of these dovetailed with the hypothesis that his partners in crime were to escape and bear the blame, while he was to bring the body back to town and assume innocence. Paget was admitted to his cell later in the morning by Gopher Jones. He shook hands with the prisoner. Jones retired. "Tough luck, Gordon," the engineer said. "What does Sheba think?" asked the young man quickly. "We haven't told her you have been arrested. I heard it only a little while ago." "And Diane?" "Yes, she knows." "Well?" demanded Gordon brusquely.