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 who seemed to recognize him, no one whom Hartwell identified as a member of the recent expedition against the Texans.

There was one advantage of having a crowd of them in town looking for him, at any rate—Stott's audience would be the larger for his confession, if he had not already made it to Duncan. His distrust of Stott, stirred by Fannie's declaration that he never would implicate himself by his own confession to clear another, had grown through the night. Hartwell was uneasy over the outlook now, for if Winch should come in before the bank opened it would mean a fight, and the useless sacrifice of one or the other of their lives.

It wanted a few minutes of nine o'clock when Major Simmonds, the teller, arrived, his hat at a gallant slant. He unlocked the door with high importance, swung it back, and put the brick against it, and disappeared behind the grill. Hartwell roamed anxious eyes up and down the street, watching for Stott, determined to go across and stop him before he could get into the bank.

He was thus engaged in his survey of the street when Major Simmonds came rushing out, bareheaded, hair disarranged from the bald spot which he took such studious care to conceal. Hartwell was the nearest person to him, directly across the