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“You see,” continued Miss Cahill, eagerly, “I always keep a dozen of each article, and as each one is sold I check it off in my day-book. Yesterday Mrs. Bolland bought a poncho for the colonel. That left eleven ponchos. Then a few minutes later I gave Lightfoot a red kerchief for his squaw. That left eleven kerchiefs.”

“Stop!” cried Ranson. “Miss Cahill,” he began, severely, “I hope you do not mean to throw suspicion on the wife of my respected colonel, or on Mrs. Lightfoot, ‘the Prairie Flower.’ Those ladies are my personal friends; I refuse to believe them guilty. And have you ever seen Mrs. Bolland on horseback? You wrong her. It is impossible.”

“Please,” begged Miss Cahill, “please let me explain. When you went to hold up the stage you took a poncho and a kerchief. That should have left ten of each. But when I counted them this morning there were nine red kerchiefs and nine ponchos.”

Ranson slapped his knee sharply. “Good!” he said. “That is interesting.”

“What does it prove?” demanded Cahill.

“It proves nothing, or it proves everything,” said Miss Cahill. “To my mind it proves without any doubt that someone overheard Mr. Ranson’s plan, that he dressed like him to throw suspicion on him, and that this second person was the one who robbed the paymaster. Now, father, this is where you can help us. You were there then. Try to remember. It is so important. Who came into the store after the others had gone away?”

Cahill tossed his head like an angry bull.

“There are fifty places in this post,” he protested, roughly, “where a man can get a poncho. Every trooper owns his slicker.”

“But, father, we don’t know that theirs are missing,” cried Miss Cahill, “and we do know that those in our store are. Don’t think I am foolish. It seemed such an important fact to me, and I had hoped it would help.”

“It does help–immensely!” cried Ranson.

“I think it’s a splendid clue. But, unfortunately, I don’t think we can prove anything by your father, for he’s just been telling me that there was no one in the place but himself. No one came in, and he was quite alone–” Ranson had begun speaking eagerly, but either his own words or the intentness with which Cahill received them caused him to halt and hesitate–“absolutely–alone.”

“You see,” said Cahill, thickly, “as soon as they had gone I rode to the Indian village.”

“Why, no, father,” corrected Miss Cahill. “Don’t you remember, you told me last night that when you reached Lightfoot’s tent I had just gone. That was quite two hours after the others left the store.” In her earnestness Miss Cahill had placed her hand upon her father’s arm and clutched it eagerly. “And you remember no one coming in before you left?” she asked. “No one?”

Cahill had not replaced the bandaged hand in his pocket, but had shoved it inside the opening of his coat. As Mary Cahill caught his arm her fingers sank into the palm of the hand and he gave a slight grimace of pain.

“Oh, father,” Miss Cahill cried, “your hand! I am so sorry. Did I hurt it? Please–let me see.”

Cahill drew back with sudden violence.

“No!” he cried. “Leave it alone! Come, we must be going.” But Miss Cahill held the wounded hand in both her own. When she turned her eyes to Ranson they were filled with tender concern.

“I hurt him,” she said, reproachfully. “He shot himself last night with one of those new cylinder revolvers.”

Her father snatched the hand from her. He tried to drown her voice by a sudden movement toward the door. “Come!” he called. “Do you hear me?”

But his daughter in her sympathy continued. “He was holding it so,” she said, “and it went off, and the bullet passed through here.” She laid the tip of a slim white finger on the palm of her right hand.