“I shouldn’t have exhausted the resources of the town so soon,” she thought ruefully, as she stood in the office after registering. “I don’t know what I will do this afternoon unless I sit in a red plush chair in the Ladies’ Parlor and gaze out through the meshes of a coarse lace curtain at the passers-by. I might call on Bender and see if he’d remember me. Bet his wife would. Maybe something interesting will come along, though.”
Something did. It came in the shape of a lean, brown-faced young man.
“Larry, Larry!” she cried. “It’s a homecoming to see you. I hadn’t any idea what part of the world you were in. What are you doing here?”
“The Thief!” he exclaimed, his dark eyes beaming with pleasure.
“Not so loud. I am Pen Lamont, at present. Incog, you see, under my real name, the least known of any. So don’t squeal on me.”
“I never gave anyone away yet, Pen, dear. What are you doing in this neck o’ the woods?”
“I am in hiding in the hills—at a ranch—quite domesticated. My first glimpse of a home. Like it better than I supposed I could.”
“You’d better watch out. Hebler is up in these parts somewhere, I hear. He’ll get you yet, Pen!”
“Hebler! You make my heart stop beating. I hit this trail more to escape him than anything else. What is he here for?”
“For you, I fancy. I ran across Wilks the other day and he said he heard Hebler say, ‘He’d get that thief if he never did another thing.’ So lay low. Are you here alone in town to-day?”