It was a hideous moment. He was dismissed--under suspicion. Suddenly
he laughed. But the sound that came was high-pitched, strained, and
had no semblance of a laugh in it. A moment and he sprang to his
feet.

"By G--, he can't--he can't know what he's done!" he muttered, a new
horror in his tone. "Sacked--'fired'--kicked out! he's branded me as
surely--as surely as if he'd put the irons on me!"

CHAPTER XX

APPROACHING THE TRIBUNAL

The sun was mounting royally in the eastern sky. There was not a
breath of air to temper the rapidly heating atmosphere. The green
grassland rolled away on every hand, a fascinating, limitless plain
whose monotony drives men to deep-throated curses, and yet holds them
to its bosom as surely as might a well-loved mistress. It was a
morning when the heart of man should be stirred with the joy of life,
when lungs expand with deep draughts of the earth's purest air, when
the full, rich blood circulates with strong, virile pulsations, and
the power to do tingles in every nerve.

It was no day on which a man, branded with the worst crime known to a
cattle country, should set out to face his fellow men. There should
have been darkening clouds on every horizon. There should have been
distant growlings of thunder, and every now and then the heavens
should have been "rent in twain with appalling floods of cruel light,"
to match the hopeless gloom of outraged innocence.

But the glorious summer day was there to mock, as is the way of things
in a world where the struggles and disasters of humanity must be
counted so infinitesimal.

This was the morning when Jim Thorpe turned his stiffly squared back
upon the "AZ" ranch. He wanted no melodramatic accompaniment. He
wanted the light, he wanted the cheering sun, he wanted that wealth
of natural splendor, which the Western prairie can so amply afford,
to lighten the burden which had so suddenly fallen upon him.

It was another of Fate's little tricks that had been aimed at him,
another side of that unfortunate destiny which seemed to be ever
dogging him. Well might he have cried out, "How long? How long?"
Whatever the fates had done for him in the past, whatever his
disappointments, whatever his disasters, crime had found no place in
the accusations against him. It almost seemed as though his destiny
was working its heartless pranks upon him with ever-growing
devilishness.

With subtle foresight, and knowledge of its victim it timed its