ngham was killed. But the others he saw only
to eliminate them from suspicion. One glance at each of them was
enough to give them a clean bill so far as the mystery went. They knew
nothing whatever about it.

Lane rode out to Olson's place and found him burning brush. The
cattleman explained that he was from Wyoming and wanted to sell some
registered Herefords.

Olson looked over his dry, parched crops with sardonic bitterness. "Do
I look like I could buy registered stock?" he asked sourly.

Kirby made a remark that set the ranchman off. He said that the crops
looked as though they needed water. Inside of five minutes he had
heard the story of the Dry Valley irrigation swindle. Olson was not a
foreigner. He had been born in Minnesota and attended the public
schools. He spoke English idiomatically and without an accent. The
man was a tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered Scandinavian of more than
average intelligence.

The death of Cunningham had not apparently assuaged his intense hatred
of the man or the bitterness which welled out of him toward Hull.

"Cunningham got his! Suits me fine! Now all I ask is that they hang
Hull for it!" he cried vindictively.

"Seems to be some doubt whether Hull did it," suggested Kirby, to draw
him on.

"That so? Mebbe there's evidence you don't know about." The words had
come out in the heat of impulse, shot at Kirby tensely and
breathlessly. Olson looked at the man on the horse and Lane could see
caution grow on him. A film of suspicion spread over the pupils
beneath the heavy, ragged eyebrows. "I ain't sayin' so. All I'm dead
sure of is that Hull did it."

Kirby fired a shot point-blank at him. "Nobody can be dead sure of
that unless he saw him do it."

"Mebbe some one saw him do it. Folks don't tell all they know." Olson
looked across the desert beyond the palpitating heat waves to the
mountains in the distance.

"No. That's tough sometimes on innocent people, too."

"Meanin' this nephew of old Cunningham. He'll get out all right."

"Will he? There's a girl under suspicion, too. She had no more to do
with it than I had, but she's likely to get into mighty serious trouble
just the same."

"I ain't read anything in the papers about any girl," Olson answered
sullenly.

"No, it hasn't got to the papers yet. But it will. It's up to every
man who knows anything about this to come clean."

"Is it?" The farmer looked bleakly at his visitor. "Seems to