Ted ran to the corner of the station, but all he could see of either was through a swirl of dust as the motor car in which they were riding flew up the street.

“By crickey!  I’ll bet anything that was Checkers,” grumbled Ted.  “I’m always too late to get to him.  But next time I’ll take a long chance with him.”

The train pulled into Green River at eight o’clock that night, and they all went to the leading hotel, and Ted registered them as coming from the ranch.

During the evening the boys mingled with the crowd in the hotel lobby, talking cattle, and met many of the representative women of the section.

They were out after a bunch of stockers, and promised to be in the neighborhood for several days and to visit the ranches and look over the stock.

One of the men whom they met was introduced to them as Colonel Billings, ranch owner and speculator in cattle.

He was a middle-aged man of most pleasant features—­benign, good-natured, and yet shrewd.  He dressed well for a cowman, and from his pink, bald crown and gray chin whiskers down to his neat shoes, he looked the part of the prosperous business man.

“I have a lot of stock such as I think you boys need out at my ranch,” he said to Ted, when he learned that they wanted to buy.  “I’d like to have you bring your party out to the place and stay several days as my guests.  You would then have plenty of time to look the stock over, and if you like them I’m sure we can strike a bargain.”

Ted thanked him and promised to go out to look at the stock, but as for the invitation for the whole party to stop at the ranch, he would have to consult the wishes of the party.  He rather liked the colonel, who was, apparently, bluff and sincere.

As Ted was on his way to the bank which had issued the bill which he had found in the haunted house, he stopped suddenly.  He had just seen a young woman enter a store hurriedly, and look at him over her shoulder as she did so.  She it was who had slipped the note of warning into his pocket in the Union Station, in St. Louis.

Evidently she was trying to avoid him.  But why?  He wanted to thank her for that kindly service, and, quite naturally, he had some curiosity to know who she was.

Without apparently hurrying he followed her into the store, and looked around for her.  She was not in sight, and he walked up and down the aisles between the counters, but could not find her.

Then he observed that there was a back door to the store, which opened onto an arcade.  She had escaped him through that, and Ted looked up and down the arcade.  At the far end, where it opened out into the public square, a carriage stood, and a young lady was getting into it.

It was the young lady of the subtle perfume and the note.

In a moment she was gone.

He was not far from the bank, and giving the young woman no more thought, for he was sure he would see her again, for she seemed to be mixed up in his fortunes in some manner, he made his way to the financial institution and asked for the president.