blast you! I taught her engraving, villain that I was, but when she
found out what the work really was, I thought she'd have died. She
begged and begged that I'd give the business up, and I promised and
promised, but it isn't easy to get out of a crowd of your own kind,
particularly when you're not so much of a man as you should be. At last
she got sick of waiting, and ran away--then I grew desperate and worse
than ever. I've been searching everywhere for her; you don't suppose a
smart--smart counterfeiter has to get rid of his money in the way I've
been doing, do you? I traced her to this part of the State, and I've
been going over the roads again and again trying to find her; but I
never saw her until she put this hole through my arm last night."

"I hadn't any idea who you were," interrupted the sheriff, with a face
so full of mingled indignation, pain and tenderness, that Jim couldn't
for the life of him take his eyes from it.

"Don't let any one suspect her, young man," continued the father. "I'll
stay within reach--deliver me up, if it should be necessary to clear
_her_."

"Trust to me," said Jim. "I know a man when I see him, even if he _is_ a
woman."

Two days later the sheriff rode into town, leading behind him the
counterfeiter's horses, with the wagon and its contents, with thousands
of dollars in counterfeit money. The counterfeiter had escaped, he
said, and he had wounded him.

Bunkerville ran wild with enthusiasm, and when the sheriff insisted upon
paying out of his own pocket the value of Braymer's and Williamson's