the boys say is just the reason why he lied. He was TOOK
SUDDENT, don't ye see,--he'd no show--and don't like to confess it. See?
A man like HIM ain't goin' to advertise that he kin be tackled and left
senseless and no one else got hurt by it! His political influence would
be ruined here!"

The editor was momentarily staggered at this large truth.

"Nonsense!" he said, with a laugh. "Who would attack Colonel Starbottle
in that fashion? He might have been shot on sight by some political
enemy with whom he had quarreled--but not BEATEN."

"S'pose it warn't no political enemy?" said the foreman doggedly.

"Then who else could it be?" demanded the editor impatiently.

"That's jest for the press to find out and expose," returned the
foreman, with a significant glance at the editor's desk. "I reckon
that's whar the 'Clarion' ought to come in."

"In a matter of this kind," said the editor promptly, "the paper has no
business to interfere with a man's statement. The colonel has a perfect
right to his own secret--if there is one, which I very much doubt. But,"
he added, in laughing recognition of the half reproachful, half humorous
discontent on the foreman's face, "what dreadful theory have YOU and the
boys got about it--and what do YOU expect to expose?"

"Well," said the foreman very seriously, "it's jest this: You see, the
colonel is mighty sweet on that Spanish woman Ramierez up on the hill
yonder. It was her mustang he was ridin' when the row happened near her
house."

"Well?" said the editor, with disconcerting placidity.

"Well,"--hesitated the foreman, "you see, they're a bad lot, those
Greasers, especially the Ramierez, her husband."

The editor knew that the foreman was only echoing the provincial
prejudice against this race, which he himself had always combated.
Ramierez kept a fonda or hostelry on a small estate,--the last of many
leagues formerly owned by the Spanish grantee, his landlord,--and had a
wife of some small coquetries and redundant charms. Gambling took place
at the fonda, and it was said the common prejudice against the Mexican
did not, however, prevent the American from trying to win his money.

"Then you think Ramierez was jealous of the colonel? But in that case he
would have knifed him,--Spanish fashion,--and not without a struggle."

"There's more ways they have o' killin' a man than that; he might hev
been dragged off his horse by a lasso and choked," said the foreman
darkly.

The