"Now quick, Marthy." Mrs. Nitschkan had seized a pair of scissors and
cut the pocket from her skirt, tucking the roll of bills which it
contained into her man's boot. "Cry, Marthy, cry like you never cried
before. Go on, I say. Yelpin's your strong suit. Now yelp."

With that she fell to swearing lustily herself and throwing the
furniture about, even turning the stove over and sending a great shower
of soot about the room.

At the height of all this noise and confusion, dominated, it must be
said, by Mrs. Thomas's loud and, to do her justice, sincere weeping,
there came a thunderous knocking on the door, and without waiting to
have it answered the sheriff threw it open and stepped in.

"Holy smoke!" he cried. "What you knockin' down the cook-stove for?"

"'Cause I'm fightin' mad, that's why," returned Mrs. Nitschkan tartly,
"and I sure am glad to see you. I been robbed, that's what. Ain't that
so, Marthy?"

Mrs. Thomas lifted her tear-stained face and corroborated this with
mournful nods.

"Whilst I was takin' a little nap," went on Mrs. Nitschkan excitedly, "a
rascal brother of Gallito's who shouldn't never have been let out of
jail cut the pocket clean out of my skirt and stole my roll. Look here!"
exhibiting the jagged hole, and also the empty pocket which lay upon the
floor, "I just waked up to find him gone. He can't have got far, though.
I guess he thinks I ain't on to that rock chamber Gallito blasted out