h. I thought Langdon had told. After the fight, they started out,
myself in the rear. Young Houston had gotten a mallet from the
timekeeper. On the way home, I could hear them talking, and heard
Houston asking Langdon why he wanted to see the old man. By that I
knew that it hadn't been told yet--and I felt safer. Then they got in
a quarrel, and my chance came. It was over the mallet--Langdon took it
away from his cousin and started to fight him. Houston ran. When he
was well out of sight, I went forward. No one was near. Langdon still
had the mallet in his hand. I crept up behind him and clubbed my
revolver, hitting him on the head with it. He fell--dead--and I knew I
was safe, that Houston would be accused.'"

Barry looked earnestly at the man before him.

"That's all true, isn't it, Thayer?"

"I haven't made any objection, have I?" came surlily.

"I merely wanted to be sure. But to go on: 'Then I thought of a way to
get what I wanted from Miss Jierdon. This was several months
afterward, just before the trial. I argued that I was sure young
Houston hadn't committed the murder, and that if some woman could
testify to the fact that Langdon had that mallet, it might free
Houston, and make a hit with the old man and that maybe he would make
good on his promises. I did it pretty skilfully and she listened to
me, largely, I guess, because she was in love with me. Anyway, it
ended with her testifying at the trial in a sort of negative way. I
didn't care about that--it was something else I wanted. Later after
the old man had died, I used it. I wanted her to switch some papers on
young Mr. Houston for me, and she bucked against it. Then I told her
that she had done worse things, that she had perjured herself, and that
unless she stayed by me, she could be sent to the penitentiary. Of
course, I didn't tell her in those exact words--I did it more in the
way of making a criminal out of her already, so that the thing she was
going to do wouldn't seem as bad to her. I wasn't foolish enough to
threaten her. Besides, I told her that the mill should have been
rightfully mine, that the old man had lied to me and gotten me to work
for him for years at starvation wages, on promises that it would be
mine some time, and that he had neither taken me in partnership, nor
left it to me in the will. She got her cousin to help her in the
transfer of the papers; it was a lease and stumpage contract. He
affixed a nota