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 ble, Mr. Simpson, but I shook to think what would happen if that man killed you and came back!"

"Never mind, mother; they'll never come back."

Eudora drew a long breath as she turned from gazing down the road; a flush of color came into her face, and she gave Tom Simpson such an open look of gratitude and admiration that embarrassment almost choked him.

Far from a hero in his own eyes Tom Simpson stood that moment. He had made a most distressing muddle of it all around, he thought, taking the wrong horse and getting himself hunted as a thief. For Coburn must have gone yelping around pretty loud over his loss to set the whole community, honest men and thieves alike, on his trail. And only the thieves had found it, apparently. It would have paid the stupid ass off properly if he had lost his money, taking it for granted that the bag contained money, carrying it around in that loose fashion.

"I'll go and unsaddle your horse again, miss," he proposed, thinking of the brown handbag in the grain sack behind the saddle, and the other packages, including the box of candy, thrown around on the porch.

They returned to the house, Mrs. Ellison turning many an uneasy look behind to see if the thieves had rallied and were coming back.

"I'm going to have this orchard cleared out and trimmed, so I can see down the road," she said.

Better as it was for a flanking movement such as he had carried out that morning, Simpson thought, but profoundly hopeful it might never be used as covert for anybody on such a mission again, himself last of all. He