She sent them down-stream! So that was why there had been no pursuit! Then she must suspect—she must know everything! Glenister was stunned. Again his love for the girl surged tumultuously within him and demanded expression. But Miss Chester, no longer feeling sure that she had the situation in hand, had already started to return to the hotel. “I saw the men distinctly,” she told him, before they separated, “and I could identify them all.”
At his own house Glenister found Dextry removing the stains of the night’s adventure.
“Miss Chester recognized us last night,” he announced.
“How do you know?”
“She told me so just now, and, what’s more, she sent McNamara and his crowd down the creek instead of up. That’s why we got away so easily.”
“Well, well—ain’t she a brick? She’s even with us now. By-the-way, I wonder how much we cleaned up, anyhow—let’s weigh it.” Going to the bed, Dextry turned back the blankets, exposing four moose-skin sacks, wet and heavy, where he had thrown them.
“There must have been twenty thousand dollars with what I gave Wheaton,” said Glenister.
At that moment, without warning, the door was flung open, and as the young man jerked the blankets into place he whirled, snatched the six-shooter that Dextry had discarded, and covered the entrance.
“Don’t shoot, boy!” cried the new-comer, breathlessly. “My, but you’re nervous!”
Glenister dropped his gun. It was Cherry Malotte; and, from her heaving breast and the flying colors in her cheeks, the men saw she had been running. She did not give them time to question, but closed and locked the door while the words came tumbling from her: