At this moment Bud Lane, laboring under heavy excitement, burst open the door.
"Say, Slim, you're wanted down at the corral," he cried, paying no heed to Polly.
"Shucks!" exclaimed the disappointed Sheriff. "What's the row?"
"I don't know—Buck McKee—he's there with some of the Lazy K outfit. They want to see you."
Slim threw himself out the door with the mild expletive: "Darn the luck!"
Bud turned quickly to Polly. "Did Jack pay off the mortgage last week?" he almost shouted at the girl.
Polly stamped her foot in anger at what seemed to her to be a totally irrelevant question to the love-making she expected: "How do I know?" she angrily replied. "If that is all you came to see me for, you can go and ask him. It makes me so dog-gone mad!"
Polly, with flushed face and knitted brow, left the bewildered Bud standing in the center of the room, asking himself what it was all about.
The sound of the voices of disputing men floated in from the corral. Bud heard them, and comprehended its significance.
"It's all up with me," he cried, in mortal terror. "Buck McKee has stirred up the suspicion against Jack Payson. Jack paid off his mortgage, and they wanted to know where he raised the money. Well, Jack can tell. If he can't, I'll confess the whole business. I won't let him suffer for me. Buck sha'n't let an innocent man hang for what we've done."