oing, snapped the
heavy padlock into the log chain, which fastened the double doors of
the small building where odds and ends were stored during the winter,
and came on through the snow, smiting his hands together to get the
chilled blood running.

"Hello, Wayne," he answered. "What's up?"

"That's what I want to know," briefly. "What do you know about a
mortgage on the Bar L-M?"

It was too dark for Shandon to see the other's face clearly. He
noticed that Garth hesitated just a second before answering.

"What do you mean?" Conway's voice sought to be confident and failed.
Shandon's fist snapped shut involuntarily. It was almost, he thought,
as if Garth had answered him directly.

"I mean just this: Did you know that the Bar L-M was mortgaged to
Martin Leland for twenty-five thousand dollars?"

Garth Conway would not have been himself but some very different man
had there not been a considerable pause before he replied.

"Yes," he said at last, a little doggedly. "I knew it."

"Arthur mortgaged it the day he was killed? Or the day before?"

"Yes."

"And the mortgage was foreclosed three months ago?"

"Yes."

"And you never told me about it! Why?"

"I should have done so, I suppose," Garth said nervously. "But--
Well, the first thing you hit out for the East. You weren't attending
to business then, Wayne. You wrote me to take charge of everything,
not to bother you with ranch affairs. You gave me a power of
attorney--"

"I've been back half a year," said Shandon shortly. "I've been
attending to business. Why haven't you told me?"

Conway drew back a quick step as though he feared from his cousin's
harsh voice that physical violence would follow.

"I didn't think of it," he said weakly, and at the same time with a
pitiful attempt at defiance.

"You lie!"

The words came distinctly enunciated, cold and hard, a little pause
separating the two syllables so that each cut like a stab.

"Look here, Wayne," Garth said stiffly, "if you, who have never done a
single thing seriously in your life want to get sore because I have
neglected a matter of no pressing importance--"

"Good Lord!" cried Wayne. "No pressing importance! You'd handle my
business for me, keep all knowledge of a foreclosure from me, until the
year of redemption had passed? You'd let Martin Leland close me out,
would you? You and Hume and Leland would take the water from the
river. Good God! I never thought this sort