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amused. “So you’re the young feller that found the chair, eh?”
    Timor swallowed, suddenly uneasy and resentful. Had the deputy been listening outside before he entered?
    Nathaniel snapped, “What’s on your mind, Brad?”
    The deputy grinned. “Just wanted some information. I met Rance Gatlin over at Grosser’s a few minutes ago. Miss Hamilton, this kid’s cousin, was there. She was tellin’ about the chair that was found last night after Rance was out there. You hear about it?”
    â€œTim just told me.”
    â€œWell, the Hamilton girl said it had old Wiley’s key on it. Mighty peculiar. Rance was wonderin’ if either of you could have any idea who put the chair in the cabin?”
    Nathaniel shook his head. “Tim doesn’t know any more about it than I. What difference does it make?”
    â€œMakes a heap of difference.” The deputy scratched his protruding chin with a thick forefinger. “Never seen anybody more slippery than that Wiley. He was runnin’ likker for somebody, but we never could make him talk, and we never caught him with nobody. But it stands to reason that the feller that had his key to the Hamilton place is the one we’re after.”
    â€œIs that good reasoning?” Nathaniel said wryly. “What sort of person would bother to bring the chair and leave the key?”
    â€œThen why didn’t he bring the chair openly if he had nothin’ to hide? Look, Nat, Rance has it doped out that the feller who brought the chair may’ve been helpin’ Wiley the night you was robbed. Get what I mean?”
    â€œI’m afraid not.”
    â€œNat, you seen Wiley run that night, didn’t you?”
    â€œI saw a man run after I was hit. But I was too dizzy to recognize who it was.”
    â€œWell, I seen ’im. Drivin’ off like mad in his truck. An’ I seen your tin box when he throwed it out later after we chased him. Rance an’ me are both thinkin’ that Wiley knowed just where to throw that box—that there was a feller waitin’ there to get it. See it now? Help us find the feller Wiley was dealin’ with, an’ we’ll find that box of stones.”
    Timor opened his mouth to speak, but closed it as he felt the warning pressure of Nathaniel’s hand on his shoulder.
    â€œBrad,” Nathaniel said, “I’d like to check over this whole thing with you if you have time. Where’s Rance Gatlin?”
    â€œHe had to go on over the Gap an’ serve a summons on some feller. I just met him at Grosser’s to give him the paper.” The deputy cocked his head, and a corner of his mouth twitched. “What’s got into you, Nat? This boy been tellin’ you things?”
    There was a sudden silence. Nathaniel’s mouth hardened. “Tim’s trying to help. He’s got me thinking. Brad, I never had a chance to talk to you about this. I passed out after you reached me that night, and it was all over before I left the hospital. But something’s wrong.”
    The marble-blue eyes narrowed. “Yeah?”
    â€œI’ll show you how it was,” said Nathaniel. “Let’s go into the back room.”
    The small crowded room behind the partition contained a workshop on one side, and living quarters on the other. Timor’s quick glance took in the barred window flanking a door in the rear, then followed Nathaniel’s pointing finger to the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet. It was here that the tin box had been hidden.
    â€œI didn’t have my safe here at the time,” Nathaniel was saying. “So I stuck the box in there behind some papers, just before I went to the diner. I’d worked here most of the day getting the doors hung and the locks fixed, and I had about an hour before my gem buyer was due to meet me. It was a clear night, and before I hid the box I took a look out the back door to make sure no one was