he extreme of unloverliness.

"Before I do go, I've something to tell you," she said hurriedly,
dropping her voice. "It's this: the dead man's name was"--here her
tone went down to a mere sibilance--"Pete Ortez."

He leaned forward, once again the hard fierce man she had seen in
Martinez' office the night of the shooting.

"How did you learn that?"

"It--well, it was let slip inadvertently in my presence."

Weir would not press her further. Nor was there need, for the sudden
embarrassment on her face and indeed the information itself could have
but one source, the man who knew, Ed Sorenson.

"You're the equal of a thousand ordinary friends," he declared. "I can
make use of that item. Step aside, please; we're in the middle of the
road." And he drew her from in front of the horseman advancing upon
them.

They said nothing, but waited for the man to pass. But he pulled his
mount from a gallop to a trot, and from a trot to a foot pace, and at
last when squarely even with them came to a full stop. From under his
broad hat brim he silently considered the girl in white summer dress
and the bare-headed engineer.

Then he began to shake with laughter, which lasted but an instant. So
insulting, so sinister was that noiseless laugh that Janet's hand had
flown to Weir's arm, which she nervously clutched. As for Weir, his
limbs stiffened--she felt the tightening of the arm she grasped--as a
tiger's body grows taut preparatory to a spring.

The short, fleshy, insolent rider sitting there in the moonlight was
Burkhardt.

"Ed Sorenson better keep an eye on his little turtledove," he
remarked. And touching heel to his animal he swung ahead for town.

For one dazed minute they stared after him.

"Shoot him!" she suddenly said, through shut teeth.

"I haven't my gun along, or I'd be glad to oblige you."

"He deserves killing, the wretch!"

"On more accounts than one," he replied, quietly.

So quietly and so gravely, in truth, that her gust of rage subsided
before the low-spoken menace of the words. No quick anger was his but
a steady and deadly purpose. Again she felt the hard-held force, the
mystery of the man, as if flowing suddenly upward from subterranean
channels. What wrong had he suffered, what undeserved torture at the
hands of this man and others thus to freeze his soul?

But he immediately turned to her, asking, "Does that upset the
broth?"

A wan smile greeted his words.

"I expect it will keep the coo