ispered. "Scoby struck him down with a billy."

The accused man dropped back against the wall and his eyes closed. It
was plain that the words, together with his previous exertions and
pain, had taken the nerve all out of the fellow.

"But Scoby did not do this of his own notion," Nestor went on,
remorselessly. "It was done by your orders. You had bribed him to do
it. It was your idea that if Cameron was killed no one would ever be
able to detect the substitution of the false will for the original one."

Big Bob nodded, but did not stop there.

"I wanted to take no chances," he said, with a choke in his voice. "I
wanted the property! I did not care for the mine especially, but I told
Scoby that that was my motive--the securing of the description. I
wanted to clear my title to the entire estate. If the boy working there
that night had not followed Fremont into the room, he, Fremont, would
have been attacked also."

"Then Fremont stood in your way?" asked Nestor.

Fremont, remembering Big Bob's talk with him about his early
association with Mr. Cameron, his mention of the will, bent closer, a
startled expression on his face.

"Yes, he stood in my way," was the reply. "He is the son of Cole
Tolford, who was killed in New York a long time ago, and would have
inherited the property."

"And Mr. Cameron knew that?" asked Nestor, his old suspicions, voiced
to Fremont at the time they talked of Mother Scanlon, recurring to his
mind.

"Of course he knew," was the reply. "With Cameron out of the way, and
the boy ignorant of his parentage, I would have been safe. Still, I
thought best to put Fremont out of my way also. Then there could have
been no danger, for I was the next heir."

"I understand!" Nestor said, greatly shocked at the revelation of the
cold-blooded murder plot. "You had seen Fremont about the building,
and yet you pretended not to know him after your men had taken him
prisoner?"

"I knew him," was the faint reply. "My men captured the boy I
described to them. I preferred that my men should think I had captured
a marplot who had ruined their plans. Then they would have thought
nothing of my killing him. But Ren Downs interfered."

"That is the man who lies dead out there?"

Another nod from the injured man, now almost too weak to talk.

"It was your intention to kill Fremont? You wanted him to try to
escape and have him shot down by another?"

"Yes, that was my plan. And Scoby and Fe