questioned, in some awe.

"I knew of him, but I was only a lad then. I saw it all through the
back door of Vorse's saloon where it happened, but I've never breathed
about it to a soul. I didn't want to be murdered some dark night.
Those four men would see that the job was done quick even now, I'm
saying, if they were on to the fact. I know 'em, if nobody else
does."

Mary's skin crawled with prickles of fear.

"They must be awful bad."

"They were devils then, and I don't think they've changed to angels
to-day, though they try to appear decent. I know 'em; I know what
they'll do once they start. You can't make sheep out of wolves just by
giving 'em a fleece."

"You said they robbed another man at the same time they killed that
Dent."

"Yes; and it only goes to show the hellish crooks they are. It was
another man in the saloon. He was drunk. They made him believe he had
killed Dent. Then said they'd help him to get away if he gave them his
property. He was a rich fellow who had come out from the east and gone
to ranching, a tenderfoot. They took his stuff and he skipped the
country with his wife. That was the last of him, and I reckon he
believes to this day that he's a murderer. And that's how they got the
start of their wealth, or a big part of it, Sorenson and Vorse and the
other two. They've got the San Mateo Cattle Company, with fifty
thousand head of steers, and ten or twenty bands of sheeps and
ranches, and the bank, and all the rest, and they walk around like
honest men. But they're thieves and murderers, Mary, thieves and
murderers! I'd rather be the man I am, poor and with nothing but this
little mortgaged piece of ground and my few cattle, than them, who
robbed Dent and killed him and then robbed and drove out Weir."

"Was that the other man's name?"

"Yes."

"That's funny. The same as the man who brought me home."

"There are lots of Weirs, like the Johnsons."

"Not so many, I guess. Maybe they're related. Did the man who skipped
have any children?"

"No. None I ever heard of, though I didn't know much about him. Just
him and his wife, I think."

Johnson had perceived no resemblance between the engineer and the
vanished man of whom he spoke. As for that, however, he had no clear
recollection of the elder Weir's face; he was but twelve years old at
the time of the dramatic event, thirty years before.

"Now, come along and eat," he said. "And remember! Not a word of this
to a soul."

Mea