u tangle up with 'em for?" he
flashed in a sudden passion of grief and reproach.

Helen May's chin squared a little; but she who had not screamed when she
found her father dead in his bed; she who had read his letter without
whimpering held her voice quiet now, though womanlike she answered
Starr's question with another.

"What makes you think I am tangled up with it? What reason have you got
for connecting me with such a thing?"

A stain of anger reddened Starr's cheek bones, that had been pale. "What
reason? Well, I'll tell you. In the office of _Las Nuevas_, in that
little, inside room with the door opening out of a closet to hide it,
where I got my first real clue, I found two sheets of paper with some
strong revolutionary stuff written in English. Also I found a pamphlet
where the same stuff had been printed in Spanish. I kept that writing,
and I kept the pamphlet. I've got it now. I'd know the writing anywhere
I saw it, and I saw a sample of it here in this very room, when the wind
blew those papers off your desk."

"You--in this room!" Helen May caught her breath. "Why--why, you couldn't
have! I never wrote any revolution stuff in my life! Why--I don't know
the first thing about _Las Nuevas_, as you call it. How could my
writing--?" She caught her breath again, for she remembered.

"Why, Starr of the desert, that was Holman Sommers' writing you saw! I
remember now. Some pages of his manuscript blew off the desk when you
were here. See, I can show you a whole pile of it!" She ran to the desk,
Starr following her mechanically. "See? All kinds of scientific junk that
he wanted typed. Isn't that the writing you meant? Isn't it?" Her hands
trembled so that the papers she held close to Starr's face shook, but
Starr recognized the same symmetrical, hard-to-read chirography.

"Yes, that's it." His voice was so husky that she could hardly hear him.
He moistened his lips, that had gone dry. Was it possible? His mind kept
asking over and over.

"And here! I don't ask you to take my word for it--I know that just those
pages don't prove anything, because I might have written that stuff
myself--if I knew enough! But here's a lot that he sent over by the
stage driver yesterday. I haven't even opened it yet. You can see the
same handwriting in the address, can't you? And if he has written a
note--he does sometimes--and signed it--he always signs his name in
full--why, that will be proof, won't it?" Her eyes burned into hi