The Highgrader. William MacLeod Raine

Gunnison trip the young people at the Lodge made a party to fish Sunbeam Creek. They followed the stream far into the hills, riding along the trail which bordered it. Kilmeny and Verinder carried lunch baskets, for they were to make a day of it and return only in time for a late dinner.

      Moya made her brave pretense of gayety. With alacrity she responded to Verinder's challenge of a bet on the relative sizes of their catches. But as soon as the rest were out of sight she sat down in a shady spot and fell to musing.

      How long she sat there, a sun-dappled nymph upon whom gleams of light filtered through the leaves of the aspens, she had not the least idea. The voice of a grizzled rider startled her from her dreams. Her lifted eyes took in the grim look of the man, garnished with weapons ready to his hands.

      "Mornin', miss," he nodded amiably.

      "Good-morning." And swift on the heels of it, "You are a deputy sheriff, are you not?"

      "Rung the bell, ma'am. You belong to the English outfit, I reckon."

      She smiled. "I suppose so, though I don't know what an outfit is."

      "I mean to Lord What's-his-name's party."

      "Yes, I think I do. I'm rather sure of it."

      "Funny about some members of your crowd having the same name as the man we're looking for."

      "Mr. Kilmeny, you mean?"

      "Jack Kilmeny! Yes, ma'am."

      "He introduced himself to us, but I don't think the name he went by was Kilmeny. I was told it was Crumbs."

      "That's just a joke. His friends call him that because his people are 'way up in G. Fine bred—crumbs. Get the idea?"

      "I think so."

      "Came from the old country, his father did—son of some big gun over there. Likely he's some kin to your friends."

      He put the last observation as a question, with a sharp glance from under his heavy gray eyebrows. Moya chose to regard it as a statement.

      "Are you still searching for him?" she asked.

      "You bet we are. The sheriff's got a notion he's up in these hills somewheres. A man answering his description was seen by some rancher. But if you ask me, I'd say he was busy losing himself 'way off in Routt County, clear off the map. He used to punch cows up there and he knows all kinds of holes to hide in. It don't stand to reason he'd still be fooling around here. He's bridle-wise and saddle-broke—knows every turn of the road."

      "Yes," Moya assented listlessly.

      "He had his getaway all planned before ever he came down here. That's a cinch. The fishing was all a bluff. The four of them had the hold-up arranged weeks ago. They've gone into a hole and drawn it in after them."

      "Don't you think there's a chance he didn't do it?" she asked in a forlorn way.

      "Not a chance. Jack Kilmeny and Colter pulled off the play. What the others had to do with it I don't know."

      The deputy passed to the fishing in his conversation, hoped she would have luck, stroked his white goatee, and presently departed.

      The man had scarcely disappeared around a bend in the gulch before a sound startled her. Moya turned quickly, to see a man drop down the face of a large rock to the ground. Even before he turned she recognized that pantherine grace and her heart lost a beat.

      He came straight toward her, with the smile in his blue eyes that claimed comradeship as a matter of course.

      "You—here," she gasped.

      "I'm here, neighbor. Where ought I to be—in Routt County losing myself?"

      Her little hand was lost in his big brown fist, her gaze locked in his.

      "You heard him?"

      "Couldn't help it. I was working down through that grove of pines to the river when I saw him."

      "He may come back." Her quick glance went up the gulch into which the deputy had disappeared.

      "I reckon not. Let's sit down and talk."

      Her first thought had been of his danger, but she remembered something else now. "No, I think not, Mr. Kilmeny."

      The deep eyes that met his steadily had in them the rapier flash. He smiled.

      "Because I am a miscreant, I reckon," he drawled.

      "You say it, not I."

      "Now you're dodging, neighbor. You think it."

      "If so, do I think more than the truth?"

      A ripple of sardonic laughter stirred in him. "I see you have me convicted and in the penitentiary already."

      "Your actions convict you."

      "So you think. Isn't it just possible you don't understand them?" There was the faintest hint of derision in his polite inquiry.

      A light flashed in her dusky eyes, a shining hope newborn in her eager heart. "Are you telling me that you are innocent?"

      "You've been thinking me guilty, then," he countered swiftly.

      "What else could I think?"

      "You might have waited to hear the defense."

      "If you had stayed to make one, but you ran away."

      "How do you know I did?"

      "You were gone when the officers reached your camp."

      His smile was grim and his voice defiant. "There was a man up in the hills I wanted to see in a hurry."

      By the look in her eyes it was as if he had struck her. With fine contempt her answer came. "Was there another man up there in the rocks just now that you had to see until the deputy left?"

      "Anyhow, there was a young woman down by the banks of Sunbeam I wanted to see after he was gone," the fugitive claimed boldly.

      A faint angry flush glowed delicately beneath the olive of her cheeks. "Evasions—nothing but evasions."

      She turned away, sick at heart. He had treated with flippancy the chance she had given him. Would an innocent man have done that?

      Swift as an arrow his hand shot out, caught her shoulder, and held her firmly. The eyes that lifted to his flamed with proud resentment.

      "I'm not going to let you go like this. Don't think it."

      "Sir."

      "You'll do me justice first." His hand dropped from her shoulder, but the masterful look of him stayed her steps. "You'll tell me what evidence you've got against me."

      Again an insurgent hope warmed her heart. Wild he might be, but surely no criminal—if there was any truth in faces.

      What she had heard against him she told. "The robbers were riding horses like yours. You left the fair grounds early. You and your friend were seen going into the corral where you had stabled the animals. This was less than half an hour before the robbery. When you passed us on the road you were anxious about something. You looked back two or three times. Both you and Mr. Colter showed you were in a hurry. Then you ran away before the sheriff reached your camp. Does an innocent man do that?" She put her question as an accusation, but in the voice was a little tremble that asked to be refuted.

      "Sometimes he does. Now listen to me. The horses ridden by the robbers were Colter's and mine. We certainly were worried about the time we met you. And we did break camp in a hurry so as to miss the sheriff. Does this prove me guilty?"

      She brushed away the soft waves of dark hair that had fallen over her forehead in little escaping tendrils. The fearless level eyes of the outdoors West were looking straight at her.

      "I don't know. Does it?"

      "We'll say this evidence had piled up against Captain