"Hope we'll be able to run them down for you," returned Collins
cheerfully. "I suppose you lay it to Wolf Leroy's gang?"

"Of course. The work was too well done to leave any doubt of
that." The major resumed his seat behind Miss Wainwright.

To that young woman the sheriff repeated his unanswered question
in the form of a statement. "I'm waiting to learn that better
reason, ma'am."

She was possessed of that spice of effrontery more to be desired
than beauty. "Shall we say that you had no wish to injure your
friends?"

"My friends?"

Her untender eyes mocked his astonishment. "Do I choose the wrong
word?" she asked, with an audacity of a courage that delighted
him. "Perhaps they are not your friends--these train robbers?
Perhaps they are mere casual acquaintances?"

His bold eyes studied with a new interest her superb, confident
youth--the rolling waves of splendid Titian hair, the lovely,
subtle eyes with the depths of shadowy pools in them, the
alluring lines of long and supple loveliness. Certainly here was
no sweet, ingenuous youth all prone to blushes, but the complex
heir of that world-old wisdom the weaker sex has shaped to serve
as a weapon against the strength that must be met with the wit of
Mother Eve.