s scheme higher up--a master
criminal."

Miss Donovan was no fool; newspaper work had taught her to suspect men of
intellect, and that nothing, however wicked, low or depraved, was beyond
them.

"Enright!" she said definitely. "Obviously now. I've thought so from
the first. But always he worked so carefully, so guardedly, that
sometimes I have doubted. But now I say without qualifications--Enright,
smooth Mr. Enright, late of New York."

"That's my bet," Westcott agreed, his hand on her shoulder, forgetful of
his intense earnestness, "Enright is the only one who could do it, and he
has schemed so as to get John into a hole where he dare not emit a sound,
no matter what they do to him. Do you see? If the boy breathes a
suspicion he'll be indicted for murder. If they can only succeed in
keeping Frederick safely out of sight until after the court awards the
property to his heir, they can milk John at their leisure. It's a
lawyer's graft, all right."

"Then Frederick may be confined not far away?"

"Likely enough; it's wild country. There are a hundred places within
fifty miles where he might be hidden away for years. That is the job
which was given to Beaton; he had the dirty work to perform, while the
girl took care of John. I do not know how he did it--knockout drops,
possibly, in a glass of beer; the blow of a fist on a train-platform at
night; a ride into the desert to look at some thing of interest--there
are plenty of ways in which it could be quietly done by a man of Mr.
Beaton's expert experience."

"Yes, but he does not know this country--if it was only New York now."

"But Bill Lacy does, and these fellows are well acquainted--friends
apparently. Lacy and I are at daggers-points over a mining claim, and he
believes my only chance is through the use of money advanced by Fred
Cavendish. He'd ride through hell to lick me. Why, look here, Miss
Donovan, when Bill Lacy had me stuck up against the wall last night at
the hotel with a gun at my head, he lost his temper and began to taunt me
about not getting any reply from my telegrams and letters. How did he
know about them? Beaton must have told him. There's the answer; those
fellows are in cahoots, and if Fred is actually alive, Bill Lacy knows
where he is, and all about it."

She did not answer. Westcott's theory of the situation, his quick
decision that Frederick Cavendish still lived, completely overturned her
earlier conviction. Yet his