"No, I don't know what's in it, and I don't want to read it, Red."
Red's amazed whistle cut through the night silence.
"Well, if that ain't the limit! Havin' a safe-crackin' job done for a letter that you ain't ever seen and don't want to see the inside of!"
"It's all right, Red. Don't worry about it, because you've earned your money twice over to-night. Don't look on your last job as a failure, by any means."
A few hours later the Indian agent, not looking like a man who had been up all night, halted his car at Talpers's store, after he had received an excited hail from Andy Wolters.
"You're jest in time!" exclaimed Andy. "Bill Talpers's safe has been cracked and Bill is jest now tryin' to figger the damage. He says he's lost a roll of money and some other things."
Lowell found Talpers going excitedly through the contents of his broken safe. It was not the first time the trader had pawed over the papers. Nor were the oaths that fell on Lowell's ears the first that the trader had uttered since the discovery that he had been robbed as he slept.
It was plain enough that Talpers was suffering from a deeper shock than could come through any mere loss of money. Not even when Lowell contrived to drop the roll of bills, where the trader's clerk picked it up with a whoop of glee, did Talpers's expression change. His oaths were those of a man distraught, and the contumely he heaped upon Sheriff Tom Redmond moved that official to a spirited defense.
"I can't see why you hold me responsible for a safe that you've been keeping within earshot all these years," retorted Tom, in answer to Talpers's sneers about the lack of protection afforded the county's business men. "If you can't hear a yeggman working right next to your sleeping-quarters, how do you expect me to hear him, 'way over to White Lodge? I'll leave it to Lowell here if your complaint is reasonable. I'll do the best I can to get this man, but it looks to me as if he's made a clean getaway. What sort of papers was it you said you lost, Bill?"