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 little nearer to get in on everything. Simpson went on drying his hands.

"No, they're not your knots," he replied calmly; "they're mine. A bunch of men claiming to be a sheriff's posse overhauled me yesterday morning. They said they'd been sent to recover the property I'd stolen from you, which was the first news I had that you thought I'd jumped with your stuff. They got hold of your handbag and I had a little brush with them before I got it back. I don't believe they took anything, but you'll find it jumbled up a bit."

Coburn had stooped over the saddle and was cutting the bundle loose while Simpson made his unhurried explanation.

"Who in the hell was they?" he asked, looking up sharply.

"The four gentlemen who put over the joke on your man Wallace in the saloon."

"Like hell you'd ever git it back from them fellers!" Coburn scoffed. "You're slick, all right, but you ain't slick enough to put a yarn like that over on me. If you've hid that out thinkin' you'll go back and"

Coburn had the sack open; eagerness to come at its contents cut off his ignoble innuendoes. He dumped the stuff on the ground, grabbed the brown bag, took a hurried squint into it and turned threateningly to Simpson, who was standing by filling his pipe.

"Don't make a break to leave this place till I check up on this," he warned.

Coburn poled off to the house, his tribe at his heels, the rest of the sack's contents scattered about as they had