"Girls beat me!" But he was more determined than ever to win Nan.

Three days later, Nan received from the Big Grove post office a thin, carefully tied parcel. Inside much protective wrapping was a brilliantly-colored lithograph of an incredibly sweet young shepherdess dressed in pink, with roses at her breast and holding a beribboned crook as she watched six adoring lambs. On the back was penciled:

"From the Black Sheep that ain't in the picture." Jack Hayes's name was signed with a flourish.

Flattered, Nan showed it to Susan Dines, who admired it duly and remarked:

"I wonder what that bottom piece he cut off had on it. Advertisin', I guess."

Nan pinned the thing to the wall of the living room. That evening Jack came to call on Nan, the first of many visits. She liked him, enjoyed his buoyant wit and the glimpses of adventurous life he revealed. He brought a new flavor into the routine of her hardworking days; and Susan and Billy Dines welcomed him, too.

CHAPTER XVII

THE AMATEUR DETECTIVE

ACK, you ought to be ashamed to chase Nan

J

Forest the way you're doin'! She's only a kid,

an' a darn nice one, too." Kate Hayes's serious brown eyes contracted under frowning brows, and she held her gaze upon her brother until his eyes acknowledged it. "You know what I mean!"

"All right," Jack conceded irritably. "But I do hate to see that dumb Stokes fellow hangin' around her." "Jealous? You!" Kate laughed scornfully. "Maybe you'd like to marry the girl?"

"No, of course not; but why can't I have a good time with her without you buttin' in?"

"You know why, Jack. It ain't in you to respect a girl's innocence; ain't you had trouble enough already?"

Kate's harangue went on until Jack fled to mount a restive sorrel and gallop away.

As he rode, he admitted to himself that his sister was right; he had no business to intrude between Nan and the highly eligible Harvey Stokes; he must give up the pleasure of driving the hayman indoors of an evening to talk with Susan and Billy Dines while he

sat outside on the narrow porch with Nan and delighted her with cowboy songs, outlaw ballads and carefully expurgated narratives of his own experiences. Twice he had stood alone with her at the gate, after Stokes had departed in silent rage, and had been aware of the physical tremor that unconsciously stirred her at his nearness.

"A green kid like her-easy!" But Kate was right; she was really too nice a girl to smirch.

Firm in his resolution to avoid Nan, he promised himself that he would never see her again—and found himself on the Dines porch that evening!

As usual, he outstayed Harvey Stokes; and when Susan Dines called "good night!" he moved close to take one of Nan's firm hands from its place of rest on her lap and raise it to his cheek.

"Sweet little hand!" he murmured, and kissed the upturned knuckles.

"Why, Jack!" Nan attempted to pull her hand away, laughing. He captured her other hand, leaned toward her and whispered:

"What do you see in my eyes, girlie?"

"Is it a game, Jack?" Nan looked obediently; “am I supposed to be 'Little Red Riding Hood'?"

"Kiss me, Nan!" he urged, his eyes burning. "Oh!" Nan exclaimed, disengaging both hands, “I believe you are the Bad Wolf!" She rose, pretended to yawn. "I'm too tired and sleepy to play games to

night, Jack. Go home-and give my love to Kate." Jack Hayes began to revise his opinion of Nan.

A stray puff of wind interrupted Harvey Stokes's "figgerin'" as he sat at the round table in the Dines living room; it blew the pink shepherdess picture off the wall and face downwards across his paper. He read:

"From the Black Sheep that ain't in the picture— Jack Hayes." He turned it over, and felt that he had seen the picture before. But it was not just the same he noted the roughly-trimmed lower edge; something had been cut away; what? Ah, he remembered now! There should be a calendar under the picture he had seen its duplicate on Clint Alberts's wall-and under the calendar pad the printed words: "First National Bank, Homeville, Kas." and "Capital $25,000; Surplus $17,500; Deposits $215,000."

Struck by a sudden inspiration, Harvey rolled the lithograph and thrust it inside his shirt; at home, he hid it under his mattress.

Proof that Jack Hayes had helped to rob the Homeville bank? To Harvey, yes; but he knew that for the officers of the law it would be only a trivial clew and no evidence at all. The bank had distributed the lithographs widely, and Jack could have secured one anywhere. In his heart, Harvey was convinced that it was a part of the loot taken by the outlaws, but what could he do? Only wait and watch-a tormenting

prospect, dominated as he was by the thought of Nan and the peril to her which Hayes represented. How could he warn her without making himself ridiculous? However dull, dumb and stumbling she thought him, he must not give her the chance to ridicule him. If he was right about Jack Hayes, the step he took towards exposing him must be decisive, convincing.

In his deliberate, thorough fashion, therefore, Harvey undertook to spy upon his rival. He moved the camp of his cutting and baling crew to a high prairie plateau overlooking the Hayes place, and contrived to keep the house under observation during the daylight hours. Evenings, he rode his big gray over the trail beaten by Jack's sorrel to the Dines porch, where he sat on obstinately until Nan bade both him and Jack good night.

On one of these evenings, when Billy Dines sat talking with them, the old man mentioned that he had seen at Big Grove a poster offering a reward of $2,000 each for the Homeville bank robbers "dead or alive."

"Gracious, that's a lot of money!" Nan exclaimed. "How many were there, Uncle Billy?" The old man turned to Harvey.

"Five, wasn't they, Harve?" In the two months since the robbery details had become a bit uncertain in his mind.

"Five, yes," Stokes confirmed, and in turn consulted Jack Hayes: "Three got away, didn't they, Jack?" He knew that four had escaped.