"What was his name?" she demanded.
"Malcolm Piers."
She looked at him with round eyes. "How exciting!" she cried.
"Exciting?" said Jack, very much taken aback.
"Why, yes," she said. "There can't be more than one by that name. It must have been Malcolm Piers the absconder."
Her last word had much the effect of a bomb explosion under Jack's horse. The animal reared violently, almost falling back on his rider. Linda was not sufficiently experienced on horseback to see that Jack's hand had spasmodically given the cruel Western bit a tremendous tug. The horse plunged and violently shook his head to free himself of the pain. When he finally came back to earth, the actions of the horse seemed sufficient to account for the sudden grimness of Jack's expression. His upper lip had disappeared, leaving only a thin, hard line.
"Goodness!" said Linda nervously. "These horses are unexpected."
"What did you call him?" asked Jack quietly.
"Absconder," she said innocently. "Malcolm Piers was the boy who stole five thousand dollars from the Bank of Canada, and was never heard of afterward. He was only twenty."
He looked at her stupidly. "Five thousand dollars!" he repeated more than once. "Why that's ridiculous!"