it now?"

The large man nodded. The brains behind his mild eyes were working
swiftly, shrewdly.

"Will's in town. Been in since yesterday morning," he said after a
while. "Seen him?"

Jim suddenly sprang from his seat, the moody fire of his dark eyes
blazing furiously.

"Seen him! Seen him!" he cried, with a sudden letting loose of all the
bitterness and smouldering passion which had been so long pent up.
"Seen him? I should say I have. I've seen him as he really is. I've
seen----"

He broke off and began to pace the room. Peter was still at the table.
His hands were still raking at the pile of dirt. His face was quite
unmoved at the other's evident passion; only his eyes displayed his
interest.

"God! but the thought of him sets me crazy," Jim went on furiously.
Then he paused, and stood confronting the other. "Peter, I came in
here without knowing why on earth I came. I came because something
forced me, I s'pose. Now I know what made me come. I've got to get it
off my chest, and you've got to listen to it."

Peter's smile was the gentlest thing imaginable.

"Guess that's easy," he said. "I knew there was something you'd got
that wasn't good for you to hold. Sort of fancied you'd like to get
rid of it--here."

The calm sincerity of the man was convincing. Jim felt its effect
without appreciation, for the hot blood of bitterness still drove him.
His wrongs were still heavy upon him, water-logging his better sense,
and leaving it rudderless.

He hesitated. It was not that he did not know how to begin. It was not
that he had any doubts in his mind. Just for a second he wondered at
the strange influence which was forcing his story from him. It puzzled
him--it almost angered him. And something of this anger appeared in
his manner and tone when he spoke.

"Will Henderson's a damned traitor," he finally burst out.

Peter nodded.

"We're all that," he said gently: "if it's only to ourselves."

"Oh, I don't want your moralizing," the other cried roughly. "Listen,
this is the low, mean story of it. You'll have little enough
moralizing to do when you've heard it."

Then he told Peter of their meeting the day before, and of the
friendly honesty of his purpose in the shooting match. How Will had
accepted, shot, and lost. This part he told with a grim setting of his
teeth, and it was not until he came to the story of the man's
treachery that his manner became intemperate. Then he spoke with all
the color of a