ion to rise.

"Sit still, Dorl," came the warning voice.

White with rage, the freebooter sat still, his dissipated face and heavy
angry lips, looking like a debauched and villanous caricature of his
brother before him.

"Yes, I suppose you'd have potted me, Dorl," said the ex-sergeant. "You'd
have thought no more of doing that than you did of killing Linley, the
ranchman; than you did of trying to ruin Jo Byndon, your wife's sister,
when she was sixteen years old, when she was caring for your child--giving
her life for the child you brought into the world."

"What in the name of hell--it's a lie!"

"Don't bluster. I know the truth."

"Who told you--the truth?"

"She did--to-day--an hour ago."

"She here--out here?" There was a new, cowed note in the voice.

"She is in the next room."

"What did she come here for?"

"To make you do right by your own child. I wonder what a jury of decent
men would think about a man who robbed his child for five years, and let
that child be fed and clothed and cared for by the girl he tried to
destroy, the girl he taught what sin there was in the world."

"She put you up to this. She was always in love with you, and you know
it."

There was a dangerous look in Foyle's eyes, and his jaw set hard. "There
would be no shame in a decent woman caring for me, even if it was true. I
haven't put myself outside the boundary as you have. You're my brother,
but you're the worst scoundrel in the country--the worst unhanged. Put on
the table there the letter in your pocket. It holds five hundred dollars
belonging to your child. There's twenty-five hundred dollars more to be
accounted for."

The other hesitated, then with an oath threw the letter on the table.
"I'll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you'll stop this damned
tomfoolery," he said, sullenly, for he saw that he was in a hole.

"You'll pay it, I suppose, out of what you stole from the C. P. R.
contractor's chest. No, I don't think that will do."

"You want me to go to prison, then?"

"I think not. The truth would come out at the trial--the whole truth--the
murder and all. There's your child, Bobby. You've done him enough wrong
already. Do you want him--but it doesn't matter whether you do or not--do
you want him to carry through life the fact that his father was a
jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carries the scar you made when
you threw her against the door?"

"What do you want with me, then?" The man sank sl