r suspected the young girl's disaffection.
Perhaps she had,--it was another burden laid upon her shoulders,--but
the proud woman had kept it to herself. A film of moisture came across
his eyes. I fear he thought less of the suggestion of Susy's secret
meeting with Pedro, or Incarnacion's implied suspicions that Pedro was
concerned in Peyton's death, than of this sentimental possibility. He
knew that Pedro had been hated by the others on account of his position;
he knew the instinctive jealousies of the race and their predisposition
to extravagant misconstruction. From what he had gathered, and
particularly from the voices he had overheard on the Fair Plains Road,
it seemed to him that Pedro was more capable of mercenary intrigue than
physical revenge. He was not aware of the irrevocable affront put upon
Pedro by Peyton, and he had consequently attached no importance to
Peyton's own half-scornful intimation of the only kind of retaliation
that Pedro would be likely to take. The unsuccessful attempt upon
himself he had always thought might have been an accident, or if it was
really a premeditated assault, it might have been intended actually for
HIMSELF and not Peyton, as he had first thought, and his old friend had
suffered for HIM, through some mistake of the assailant. The purpose,
which alone seemed wanting, might have been to remove Clarence as a
possible witness who had overheard their conspiracy--how much of it they
did not know--on the Fair Plains Road that night. The only clue he held
to the murderer in the spur locked in his desk, merely led him beyond
the confines of the rancho, but definitely nowhere else. It was,
however, some relief to know that the crime was not committed by one of
Peyton's retainers, nor the outcome of domestic treachery.

After some consideration he resolved to seek Jim Hooker, who might be
possessed of some information respecting Susy's relations, either from
the young girl's own confidences or from Jim's personal knowledge of the
old frontier families. From a sense of loyalty to Susy and Mrs. Peyton,
he had never alluded to the subject before him, but since the young
girl's own indiscretion had made it a matter of common report, however
distasteful it was to his own feelings, he felt he could not plead the
sense of delicacy for her. He had great hopes in what he had always
believed was only her exaggeration of fact as well as feeling. And he
had an instinctive reliance on her fellow pose