"Was it because you tried to defend James to him--tried to get him to
forgive the treachery of his fiancee and his nephew?"

Again Jack shot at him a look of perplexed and baffled wonder. That
brown, indomitable face, back of which was so much strength of purpose
and so much keenness of apprehension, began to fill him with alarm.
This man let no obstacles stop him. He would go on till he had
uncovered the whole tangle they were trying to keep hidden.

"For God's sake, man, stop this snooping around! You'll get off.
We'll back you. There's nowhere nearly enough evidence to convict you.
Let it go at that," implored Jack.

"I can't do that. I've got to clear my name. Do you think I'm willin'
to go back to my friends with a Scotch verdict hangin' over me? 'He
did it, but we haven't evidence enough to prove it.' Come clean, Jack!
Are you and James in this thing? Is that why you want me to drop my
investigations?"

"No, of course we're not! But--damn it, do you think we want the name
of my brother's wife dragged through the mud?"

"Why should it be dragged through the mud--if you're all innocent?"

"Because gossips cackle--and people never forget. If there was some
evidence against her and against James--no matter how little--twenty
years from now people would still whisper that they had killed his
uncle for the fortune, though it couldn't be proved. You know that."

"Just as they're goin' to whisper about Rose McLean if I don't clear
things up. No, Jack. You've got the wrong idea. What we want to do
is for us all to jump in an' find the man who did it. Then all gossip
against us stops."

"That's easy to say. How're you going to find the guilty man?" asked
Jack sulkily.

"If you'd tell what you know we'd find him fast enough. How can I get
to the bottom of the thing when you an' James won't give me the facts?"

Jack looked across at him doggedly. "I've told all I'm going to tell."

The long, lithe body of the man from the Wyoming hills leaned forward
ever so slightly. "Don't you think it! Don't you think it for a
minute! You'll come clean whether you want to or not--or I'll put that
rope you mentioned round your brother's throat."

Jack looked at this man with the nerves of chilled steel and shivered.
What could he do against a single-track mind with such driving force
back of it? Had Kirby got anything of importance on James? Or was he
bluffing?

"Talk 's cheap," he sneered uneasily.